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They desired no companionship beyond their own, and it was evil for any man of the regiment who attempted dispute with them. Physical argument was out of the question as regarded Mulvaney and the Yorkshireman; and assault on Ortheris meant a combined attack from these twaina business which no five men were anxious to have on their hands. Therefore they flourished, sharing their drinks, their tobacco, and their money; good luck and evil; battle and the chances of death; life and the chances of happiness from Calicut in southern, to Peshawur in northern India.
Through no merit of my own it was my good fortune to be in a measure admitted to their friend-shipfrankly by Mulvaney from the beginning, sullenly and with reluctance by Learoyd, and suspiciously by Ortheris, who held to it that no man not in the Army could fraternise with a red-coat. Like to like, said he. Im a bloomin sodgerhes a bloomin civilian. Taint naturalthats all.
But that was not all. They thawed progressively, and in the thawing told me more of their lives and adventures than I am ever likely to write.
Omitting all else, this tale begins with the Lamentable Thirst that was at the beginning of First Causes. Never was such a thirstMulvaney told me so. They kicked against their compulsory virtue, but the attempt was only successful in the case of Ortheris. He, whose talents were many, went forth into the highways and stole a dog from a civilianvidelicet, some one, he knew not who, not in the Army. Now that civilian was but newly connected by marriage with the colonel of the regiment, and outcry was made from quarters least anticipated by Ortheris, and, in the end, he was forced, lest a worse thing should happen, to dispose at ridiculously unremunerative rates of as promising a small terrier as ever graced one end of a leading string. The purchase-money was barely sufficient for one small outbreak which led him to the guard-room. He escaped, however, with nothing worse than a severe reprimand, and a few hours of punishment drill. Not for nothing had he acquired the reputation of being the best soldier of his inches in the regiment. Mulvaney had taught personal cleanliness and efficiency as the first articles of his companions creed. A dhirty man, he was used to say, in the speech of his kind, goes to Clink for a weakness in the knees, an is coort-martialled for a pair av socks missin; but a clane man, such as is an ornament to his servicea man whose buttons are gold, whose coat is wax upon him, an whose coutrements are widout a speckthat man may, spakin in reason, do fwhat he likes an dhrink from day to divil. Thats the pride av bein dacint.
We sat together, upon a day, in the shade of a ravine far from the barracks, where a watercourse used to run in rainy weather. Behind us was the scrub jungle, in which jackals, peacocks, the gray wolves of the North-Western Provinces, and occasionally a tiger estrayed from Central India, were supposed to dwell. In front lay the cantonment, glaring white under a glaring sun; and on either side ran the broad road that led to Delhi.
It was the scrub that suggested to my mind the wisdom of Mulvaney taking a days leave and going upon a shooting-tour. The peacock is a holy bird throughout India, and he who slays one is in danger of being mobbed by the nearest villagers; but on the last occasion that Mulvaney had gone forth, he had contrived, without in the least offending local religious susceptibilities, to return with six beautiful peacock skins which he sold to profit. It seemed just possible then
But fwhat manner av use is ut to me goin out widout a dhrink? The grounds powdherdhry underfoot, an ut gets unto the throat fit to kill, wailed Mulvaney, looking at me reproachfully. An a peacock is not a bird you can catch the tail av onless ye run. Can a man run on watheran jungle-wather too?
Ortheris had considered the question in all its bearings. He spoke, chewing his pipe-stem meditatively the while:
Go forth, return in glory, To Clusiums royal ome: An round these bloomin temples ang The bloomin shields o Rome. |
You better go. You aint like to shoot yourselfnot while theres a chanst of liquor. Me an Learoydll stay at ome an keep shopcase o anythin turnin up. But you go out with a gas-pipe gun an ketch the little peacockses or somethin. You kin get one days leave easy as winkin. Go along an get it, an get peacockses or somethin.
Jock, said Mulvaney, turning to Learoyd, who was half asleep under the shadow of the bank. He roused slowly.
Sitha, Mulvaaney, go, said he.
And Mulvaney went; cursing his allies with Irish fluency and barrack-room point.
Take note, said he, when he had won his holiday, and appeared dressed in his roughest clothes with the only other regimental fowling-piece in his hand. Take note, Jock, an you Orthris, I am goin in the face av my own willall for to please you. I misdoubt anythin will come av permiscuous huntin afther peacockses in a desolit lan; an I know that I will lie down an die wid thirrrst. Me catch peacockses for you, ye lazy scuttsan be sacrificed by the peasanthryUgh!
He waved a huge paw and went away.
At twilight, long before the appointed hour, he returned empty-handed, much begrimed with dirt.
Peacockses? queried Ortheris from the safe rest of a barrack-room table whereon he was smoking cross-legged, Learoyd fast asleep on a bench.
Jock, said Mulvaney without answering, as he stirred up the sleeper. Jock, can ye fight? Will ye fight?
Very slowly the meaning of the words communicated itself to the half-roused man. He understoodand againwhat might these things mean? Mulvaney was shaking him savagely. Meantime the men in the room howled with delight. There was war in the confederacy at lastwar and the breaking of bonds.
Barrack-room etiquette is stringent. On the direct challenge must follow the direct reply. This is more binding than the ties of tried friendship. Once again Mulvaney repeated the question. Learoyd answered by the only means in his power, and so swiftly that the Irishman had barely time to avoid the blow. The laughter around increased. Learoyd looked bewilderedly at his friendhimself as greatly bewildered. Ortheris dropped from the table because his world was falling.
Come outside, said Mulvaney, and as the occupants of the barrack-room prepared joyously to follow, he turned and said furiously, There will be no fight this nightonless any wan av you is wishful to assist. The man that does, follows on.
No man moved. The three passed out into the moonlight, Learoyd fumbling with the buttons of his coat. The parade-ground was deserted except for the scurrying jackals. Mulvaneys impetuous rush carried his companions far into the open ere Learoyd attempted to turn round and continue the discussion.
Be still now. Twas my fault for beginnin things in the middle av an end, Jock. I should ha comminst wid an explanation; but Jock, dear, on your sowl are ye fit, think you, for the finest fight that iver wasbetther than fightin me? Considher before ye answer.
More than ever puzzled, Learoyd turned round two or three times, felt an arm, kicked tentatively, and answered, Ahm fit. He was accustomed to fight blindly at the bidding of the superior mind.
They sat them down, the men looking on from afar, and Mulvaney untangled himself in mighty words.
Followin your fools scheme I wint out into the thrackless desert beyond the barricks. An there I met a pious Hindu dhriving a bullockkyart. I tuk ut for granted he wud be delighted for to convoy me a piece, an I jumped in
You long, lazy, black-haired swine, drawled Ortheris, who would have done the same thing under similar circumstances.
Twas the height av policy. That naygurman dhruv miles an milesas far as the new railway line theyre buildin now back av the Tavi river. Tis a kyart for dhirt only, says he now an again timoreously, to get me out av ut. Dhirt I am, sez I, an the dhryest that you iver kyarted. Dhrive on, me son, an glory be wid you. At that I wint to slape, an took no heed till he pulled up on the embankmint av the line where the coolies were pilin mud. There was a matther av two thousand coolies on that lineyou remimber that. Prisintly a bell rang, an they throops off to a big pay-shed. Wheres the white man in charge? sez I to my kyartdhriver. In the shed, sez he, engaged on a riffle.A fwhat? sez I. Riffle, sez he. You take ticket. He take money. You get nothin.Oho! sez I, thats fwhat the shuperior an cultivated man calls a raffle, me misbeguided child av darkness an sin. Lead on to that raffle, though fwhat the mischief tis doin so far away from uts homewhich is the charity-bazaar at Christmas, an the colonels wife grinnin behind the tea-tableis more than I know. Wid that I wint to the shed an found twas payday among the coolies. Their wages was on a table forninst a big, fine, red buck av a mansivun fut high, four fut wide, an three fut thick, wid a fist on him like a corn-sack. He was payin the coolies fair an easy, but he wud ask each man if he wud raffle that month, an each man sez, Yes, av course. Thin he wud deduct from their wages accordin. Whin all was paid, he filled an ould cigar-box full av gun-wads an scatthered ut among the coolies. They did not take much joy av that performince, an small wondher. A man close to me picks up a black gun-wad an sings out, I have ut.Good may ut do you, sez I. The coolie wint forward to this big, fine, red man, who threw a cloth off av the most sumpshus, jooled, enamelled an variously bedivilled sedan-chair I iver saw.
Sedan-chair! Put your ead in a bag. That was a palanquin. Dont yer know a palanquin when you see it? said Ortheris with great scorn.
I chuse to call ut sedan-chair, an chair ut shall be, little man, continued the Irishman. Twas a most amazin chairall lined wid pink silk an fitted wid red silk curtains. Here ut is, sez the red man. Here ut is, sez the coolie, an he grinned weakly-ways. Is ut any use to you? sez the red man. No, sez the coolie; Id like to make a presint av ut to you.I am graciously pleased to accept that same, sez the red man; an at that all the coolies cried aloud in fwhat was mint for cheerful notes, an wint back to their diggin, lavin me alone in the shed. The red man saw me, an his face grew blue on his big, fat neck. Fwhat dyou want here? sez he. Standin-room an no more, sez I, onless it may be fwhat ye niver had, an thats manners, ye rafflin ruffian, for I was not goin to have the Service throd upon. Out of this, sez he. Im in charge av this section av construction.Im in charge av mesilf, sez I, an its like I will stay a while. Dye raffle much in these parts?Fwhats that to you?sez he. Nothin, sez I, but a great dale to you, for begad Im thinkin you get the full half av your revenue from that sedan-chair. Is ut always raffled so? I sez, an wid that I wint to a coolie to ask questions. Bhoys, that mans name is Dearsley, an hes been rafflin that ould sedan-chair monthly this matther av nine months. Ivry coolie on the section takes a ticketor he gives em the gowanst a month on payday. Ivry coolie that wins ut gives ut back to him, for tis too big to carry away, an hed sack the man that thried to sell ut. That Dearsley has been makin the rowlin wealth av Roshus by nefarious rafflin. Think av the burnin shame to the sufferin coolie-man that the Army in Injia are bound to protect an nourish in their bosoms! Two thousand coolies defrauded wanst a month!
Dom t coolies. Hast gotten t cheer, man? said Learoyd.
Hould on. Havin onearthed this amazin an stupenjus fraud committed by the man Dearsley, I hild a council av war; he thryin all the time to sejuce me into a fight wid opprobrious language. That sedan- chair niver belonged by right to any foreman av coolies. Tis a kings chair or a quanes. Theres gold on ut an silk an all manner av trapesemints. Bhoys, tis not for me to countenance any sort av wrong-doinme bein the ould manbutanyway he has had ut nine months, an he dare not make throuble av ut was taken from him. Five miles away, or ut may be six
There was a long pause, and the jackals howled merrily. Learoyd bared one arm, and contemplated it in the moonlight. Then he nodded partly to himself and partly to his friends. Ortheris wriggled with suppressed emotion.
I thought ye wud see the reasonableness av ut, said Mulvaney. I made bould to say as much to the man before. He was for a direct front attackfut, horse, an gunsan all for nothin, seein that I had no thransport to convey the machine away. I will not argue wid you, sez I, this day, but subsequintly, Mister Dearsley, me rafflin jool, we talk ut out lengthways. Tis no good policy to swindle the naygur av his hard-earned emolumints, an by presint informashin twas the kyart man that tould meyeve been perpethrating that same for nine months. But Im a just man, sez I, an overlookin the presumpshin that yondher settee wid the gilt top was not come by honustat that he turned sky-green, so I knew things was more thrue than tellablenot come by honust, Im willin to compound the felony for this months winnins.
Ah! Ho! from Learoyd and Ortheris.
That man Dearsleys rushin on his fate, continued Mulvaney, solemnly wagging his head. All Hell had no name bad enough for me that tide. Faith, he called me a robber! Me! that was savin him from continuin in his evil ways widout a remonstrincean to a man av conscience a remonstrince may change the chune av his life. Tis not for me to argue, sez I, fwhatever ye are, Mister Dearsley, but, by my hand, Ill take away the temptation for you that lies in that sedan-chair.You will have to fight me for ut, sez he, for well I know you will never dare make report to any one.Fight I will, sez I, but not this day, for Im rejuced for want av nourishmint.Yere an ould bould hand, sez he, sizin me up an down; an a jool av a fight we will have. Eat now an dhrink, an go your way. Wid that he gave me some hump an whiskygood whiskyan we talked av this an that the while. It goes hard on me now, sez I, wipin my mouth, to confiscate that piece av furniture, but justice is justice.Yeve not got ut yet, sez he; theres the fight between.There is, sez I, an a good fight. Ye shall have the pick av the best quality in my rigimint for the dinner you have given this day. Thin I came hot-foot to you two. Hould your tongue, the both. Tis this way. To-morrow we three will go there an he shall have his pick betune me an Jock. Jocks a deceivin fighter, for he is all fat to the eye, an he moves slow. Now Im all beef to the look, an I move quick. By my reckonin the Dearsley man wont take me; so me an Orthris ll see fair play. Jock, I tell you, twill be big fightinwhipped, wid the cream above the jam. Afther the business twill take a good three av usJockll be very hurtto haul away that sedan-chair.
Palanquin. This from Ortheris.
Fwhatever ut is, we must have ut. Tis the only sellin piece av property widin reach that we can get so cheap. An fwhats a fight afther all? He has robbed the naygur-man, dishonust. We rob him honust for the sake av the whisky he gave me.
But wotll we do with the bloomin article when weve got it? Them palanquins are as big as ouses, an uncommon ard to sell, as McCleary said when ye stole the sentry-box from the Curragh.
Whos goin to do t fightin? said Learoyd, and Ortheris subsided. The three returned to barracks without a word. Mulvaneys last argument clinched the matter. This palanquin was property, vendible and to be attained in the simplest and least embarrassing fashion. It would eventually become beer. Great was Mulvaney.
Next afternoon a procession of three formed itself and disappeared into the scrub in the direction of the new railway line. Learoyd alone was without care, for Mulvaney dived darkly into the future, and little Ortheris feared the unknown. What befell at that interview in the lonely pay-shed by the side of the half- built embankment only a few hundred coolies know, and their tale is a confusing one, running thus
We were at work. Three men in red coats came. They saw the SahibDearsley Sahib. They made oration; and noticeably the small man among the red-coats. Dearsley Sahib also made oration, and used many very strong words. Upon this talk they departed together to an open space, and there the fat man in the red coat fought with Dearsley Sahib after the custom of white menwith his hands, making no noise, and never at all pulling Dearsley Sahibs hair. Such of us as were not afraid beheld these things for just so long a time as a man needs to cook the mid-day meal. The small man in the red coat had possessed himself of Dearsley Sahibs watch. No, he did not steal that watch. He held it in his hand, and at certain seasons made outcry, and the twain ceased their combat, which was like the combat of young bulls in spring. Both men were soon all red, but Dearsley Sahib was much more red than the other. Seeing this, and fearing for his lifebecause we greatly loved himsome fifty of us made shift to rush upon the red-coats. But a certain manvery black as to the hair, and in no way to be confused with the small man, or the fat man who foughtthat man, we affirm, ran upon us, and of us he embraced some ten or fifty in both arms, and beat our heads together, so that our livers turned to water, and we ran away. It is not good to interfere in the fightings of white men. After that Dearsley Sahib fell and did not rise, these men jumped upon his stomach and despoiled him of all his money, and attempted to fire the pay-shed, and departed. Is it true that Dearsley Sahib makes no complaint of these latter things having been done? We were senseless with fear, and do not at all remember. There was no palanquin near the pay-shed. What do we know about palanquins? Is it true that Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place, on account of his sickness, for ten days? This is the fault of those bad men in the red coats, who should be severely punished; for Dearsley Sahib is both our father and mother, and we love him much. Yet, if Dearsley Sahib does not return to this place at all, we will speak the truth. There was a palanquin, for the up-keep of which we were forced to pay nine-tenths of our monthly wage. On such mulctings Dearsley Sahib allowed us to make obeisance to him before the palanquin. What could we do? We were poor men. He took a full half of our wages. Will the Government repay us those moneys?
Those three men in red coats bore the palanquin upon their shoulders and departed. All the money that Dearsley Sahib had taken from us was in the cushions of that palanquin. Therefore they stole it. Thousands of rupees were thereall our money. It was our bank-box, to fill which we cheerfully contributed to Dearsley Sahib three-sevenths of our monthly wage. Why does the white man look upon us with the eye of disfavour? Before God, there was a palanquin, and now there is no palanquin; and if they send the police here to make inquisition, we can only say that there never has been any palanquin. Why should a palanquin be near these works? We are poor men, and we know nothing.
Such is the simplest version of the simplest story connected with the descent upon Dearsley. From the lips of the coolies I received it. Dearsley himself was in no condition to say anything, and Mulvaney preserved a massive silence, broken only by the occasional licking of the lips. He had seen a fight so gorgeous that even his power of speech was taken from him. I respected that reserve until, three days after the affair, I discovered in a disused stable in my quarters a palanquin of unchastened splendourevidently in past days the litter of a queen. The pole whereby it swung between the shoulders of the bearers was rich with the painted papier-maché of Cashmere. The shoulder-pads were of yellow silk. The panels of the litter itself were ablaze with the loves of all the gods and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheonlacquer on cedar. The cedar sliding doors were fitted with hasps of translucent Jaipur enamel and ran in grooves shod with silver. The cushions were of brocaded Delhi silk, and the curtains which once hid any glimpse of the beauty of the kings palace were stiff with gold. Closer investigation showed that the entire fabric was everywhere rubbed and discoloured by time and wear; but even thus it was sufficiently gorgeous to deserve housing on the threshold of a royal zenana. I found no fault with it, except that it was in my stable. Then, trying to lift it by the silver-shod shoulder-pole, I laughed. The road from Dearsleys pay-shed to the cantonment was a narrow and uneven one, and, traversed by three very inexperienced palanquin-bearers, one of whom was sorely battered about the head, must have been a path of torment. Still I did not quite recognise the right of the three musketeers to turn me into a fence for stolen property.
Im askin you to warehouse ut, said Mulvaney, when he was brought to consider the question. Theres no steal in ut. Dearsley tould us we cud have ut if we fought. Jock foughtan, oh, sorr, when the throuble was at uts finest an Jock was bleedin like a stuck pig, an little Orthris was shquealin on one leg chewin big bites out av Dearsleys watch, I wud ha given my place at the fight to have had you see wan round. He tuk Jock, as I suspicioned he would, an Jock was deceptive. Nine rouns they were even matched, an at the tenthAbout that palanquin now. Theres not the least throuble in the world, or we wud not ha brought ut here. You will ondher-stand that the QueenGod bless her!does not reckon for a privit soldier to kape elephints an palanquins an sich in barricks. Afther we had dhragged ut down from Dearsleys through that cruel scrub that near broke Orthriss heart, we set ut in the ravine for a night; an a thief av a porcupine an a civet-cat av a jackal roosted in ut, as well we knew in the mornin. I put ut to you, sorr, is an elegint palanquin, fit for the princess, the natural abidin place av all the vermin in cantonmints? We brought ut to you, afther dhark, and put ut in your shtable. Do not let your conscience prick. Think av the rejoicin men in the pay-shed yonderlookin at Dearsley wid his head tied up in a towelan well knowin that they can dhraw their pay ivry month widout stoppages for riffles. Indirectly, sorr, you have rescued from an on-principled son av a night-hawk the peasanthry av a numerous village. An besides, will I let that sedan-chair rot on our hands? Not I. Tis not every day a piece av pure joolry comes into the market. Theres not a king widin these forty mileshe waved his hand round the dusty horizonnot a king wud not be glad to buy ut. Some day meself, whin I have leisure, Ill take ut up along the road an dishpose av ut.
How? said I, for I knew the man was capable of anything.
Get into ut, av coorse, and keep wan eye open through the curtains. Whin I see a likely man av the native persuasion, I will descind blushin from my canopy and say, Buy a palanquin, ye black scutt? I will have to hire four men to carry me first, though; and thats impossible till next pay-day.
Curiously enough, Learoyd, who had fought for the prize, and in the winning secured the highest pleasure life had to offer him, was altogether disposed to undervalue it, while Ortheris openly said it would be better to break the thing up. Dearsley, he argued, might be a many-sided man, capable, despite his magnificent fighting qualities, of setting in motion the machinery of the civil lawa thing much abhorred by the soldier. Under any circumstances their fun had come and passed; the next pay-day was close at hand, when there would be beer for all. Wherefore longer conserve the painted palanquin?
A first-class rifle-shot an a good little man av your inches you are, said Mulvaney. But you niver had a head worth a soft-boiled egg. Tis me has to lie awake av nights schamin an plottin for the three av us. Orthris, me son, tis no matther av a few gallons av beerno, nor twenty gallonsbut tubs an vats an firkins in that sedan-chair. Who ut was, an what ut was, an how ut got there, we do not know; but I know in my bones that you an me an Jock wid his sprained thumb will get a fortune thereby. Lave me alone, an let me think.
Meantime the palanquin stayed in my stall, the key of which was in Mulvaneys hands.
Pay-day came, and with it beer. It was not in experience to hope that Mulvaney, dried by four weeks drought, would avoid excess. Next morning he and the palanquin had disappeared. He had taken the precaution of getting three days leave to see a friend on the railway, and the colonel, well knowing that the seasonal outburst was near, and hoping it would spend its force beyond the limits of his jurisdiction, cheerfully gave him all he demanded. At this point Mulvaneys history, as recorded in the mess-room, stopped.
Ortheris carried it not much further. No, e wasnt drunk, said the little man loyally, the liquor was no more than feelin its way round inside of im; but e went an filled that ole bloomin palanquin with bottles fore e went off. Es gone an ired six men to carry im, an I ad to elp im into is nupshal couch, cause e wouldnt ear reason. Es gone off in is shirt an trousies, swearin tremenjusgone down the road in the palanquin, wavin is legs out o windy.
Yes, said I, but where?
Now you arx me a question. E said e was goin to sell that palanquin, but from observations what happened when I was stuffin im through the door, I fancy es gone to the new embankment to mock at Dearsley. Soon as Jocks off duty Im goin there to see if es safenot Mulvaney, but tother man. My saints, but I pity im as elps Terence out o the palanquin when es once fair drunk!
Hell come back without harm, I said.
Corse e will. Ony question is, whatll e be doin on the road? Killing Dearsley, like as not. E shouldnt a gone without Jock or me.
Reinforced by Learoyd, Ortheris sought the foreman of the coolie-gang. Dearsleys head was still embellished with towels. Mulvaney, drunk or sober, would have struck no man in that condition, and Dearsley indignantly denied that he would have taken advantage of the intoxicated brave.
I had my pick o you two, he explained to Learoyd, and you got my palanquinnot before Id made my profit on it. Whyd I do harm when everythings settled? Your man did come heredrunk as Davys sow on a frosty nightcame a-purpose to mock mestuck his head out of the door an called me a crucified hodman. I made him drunker, an sent him along. But I never touched him.
To these things Learoyd, slow to perceive the evidences of sincerity, answered only, If owt comes to Mulvaaney long o you, Ill gripple you, clouts or no clouts on your ugly head, an Ill draw t throat twistyways, man. See there now.
The embassy removed itself, and Dearsley, the battered, laughed alone over his supper that evening.
Three days passeda fourth and a fifth. The week drew to a close and Mulvaney did not return. He, his royal palanquin, and his six attendants, had vanished into air. A very large and very tipsy soldier, his feet sticking out of the litter of a reigning princess, is not a thing to travel along the ways without comment. Yet no man of all the country round had seen any such wonder. He was, and he was not; and Learoyd suggested the immediate smashment of Dearsley as a sacrifice to his ghost. Ortheris insisted that all was well, and in the light of past experience his hopes seemed reasonable.
When Mulvaney goes up the road, said he, es like to go a very long ways up, specially when es so blue drunk as e is now. But what gits me is is not bein eard of pullin wool off the niggers somewheres about. That dont look good. The drink must ha died out in im by this, unless es broke a bank, an thenWhy dont e come back? E didnt ought to ha gone off without us.
Even Ortheriss heart sank at the end of the seventh day, for half the regiment were out scouring the countryside, and Learoyd had been forced to fight two men who hinted openly that Mulvaney had deserted. To do him justice, the colonel laughed at the notion, even when it was put forward by his much-trusted adjutant.
Mulvaney would as soon think of deserting as you would, said he. No; hes either fallen into a mischief among the villagersand yet that isnt likely, for hed blarney himself out of the Pit; or else he is engaged on urgent private affairssome stupendous devilment that we shall hear of at mess after it has been the round of the barrack-rooms. The worst of it is that I shall have to give him twenty-eight days confinement at least for being absent without leave, just when I most want him to lick the new batch of recruits into shape. I never knew a man who could put a polish on young soldiers as quickly as Mulvaney can. How does he do it?
With blarney and the buckle-end of a belt, sir, said the adjutant. He is worth a couple of non-commissioned officers when we are dealing with an Irish draft, and the London lads seem to adore him. The worst of it is that if he goes to the cells the other two are neither to hold nor to bind till he comes out again. I believe Ortheris preaches mutiny on those occasions, and I know that the mere presence of Learoyd mourning for Mulvaney kills all the cheerfulness of his room. The sergeants tell me that he allows no man to laugh when he feels unhappy. They are a queer gang.
For all that, I wish we had a few more of them. I like a well-conducted regiment, but these pasty-faced, shifty-eyed, mealy-mouthed young slouchers from the depot worry me sometimes with their offensive virtue. They dont seem to have backbone enough to do anything but play cards and prowl round the married quarters. I believe Id forgive that old villain on the spot if he turned up with any sort of explanation that I could in decency accept.
Not likely to be much difficulty about that, sir, said the adjutant. Mulvaneys explanations are only one degree less wonderful than his performances. They say that when he was in the Black Tyrone, before he came to us, he was discovered on the banks of the Liffey trying to sell his colonels charger to a Donegal dealer as a perfect ladys hack. Shackbolt commanded the Tyrone then.
Shackbolt must have had apoplexy at the thought of his ramping war-horses answering to that description. He used to buy unbacked devils, and tame them on some pet theory of starvation. What did Mulvaney say?
That he was a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, anxious to sell the poor baste where he would get something to fill out his dimples. Shackbolt laughed, but I fancy that was why Mulvaney exchanged to ours.
I wish he were back, said the colonel; for I like him and believe he likes me.
That evening, to cheer our souls, Learoyd, Ortheris, and I went into the waste to smoke out a porcupine. All the dogs attended, but even their clamourand they began to discuss the shortcomings of porcupines before they left cantonmentscould not take us out of ourselves. A large, low moon turned the tops of the plume-grass to silver, and the stunted camelthorn bushes and sour tamarisks into the likenesses of trooping devils. The smell of the sun had not left the earth, and little aimless winds blowing across the rose-gardens to the southward brought the scent of dried roses and water. Our fire once started, and the dogs craftily disposed to wait the dash of the porcupine, we climbed to the top of a rain-scarred hillock of earth, and looked across the scrub seamed with cattle paths, white with the long grass, and dotted with spots of level pond-bottom, where the snipe would gather in winter.
This, said Ortheris, with a sigh, as he took in the unkempt desolation of it all, this is sanguinary. This is unusually sanguinary. Sort o mad country. Like a grate when the fires put out by the sun. He shaded his eyes against the moonlight. An theres a loony dancin in the middle of it all. Quite right. Id dance too if I wasnt so downheart.
There pranced a Portent in the face of the moona huge and ragged spirit of the waste, that flapped its wings from afar. It had risen out of the earth; it was coming towards us, and its outline was never twice the same. The toga, table-cloth, or dressing-gown, whatever the creature wore, took a hundred shapes. Once it stopped on a neighbouring mound and flung all its legs and arms to the winds.
My, but that scarecrow as got em bad! said Ortheris. Seems like if e comes any furder well ave to argify with im.
Learoyd raised himself from the dirt as a bull clears his flanks of the wallow. And as a bull bellows, so he, after a short minute at gaze, gave tongue to the stars.
Mulvaaney! Mulvaaney! A-hoo!
Oh then it was that we yelled, and the figure dipped into the hollow, till, with a crash of rending grass, the lost one strode up to the light of the fire, and disappeared to the waist in a wave of joyous dogs! Then Learoyd and Ortheris gave greeting, bass and falsetto together, both swallowing a lump in the throat.
You damned fool! said they, and severally pounded him with their fists.
Go easy! he answered; wrapping a huge arm round each. I would have you to know that I am a god, to be treated as suchtho, by my faith, I fancy Ive got to go to the guard-room just like a privit soldier.
The latter part of the sentence destroyed the suspicions raised by the former. Any one would have been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were dropping off him. But he wore one wondrous garmenta gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heelof pale pink silk, wrought all over in cunningest needlework of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu gods. The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the light of the fire as he settled the folds round him.
Ortheris handled the stuff respectfully for a moment while I was trying to remember where I had seen it before. Then he screamed, What ave you done with the palanquin? Youre wearin the linin.
I am, said the Irishman, an by the same token the broidery is scrapin my hide off. Ive lived in this sumpshus counterpane for four days. Me son, I begin to ondherstand why the naygur is no use. Widout me boots, an me trousies like an openwork stocking on a gyurls leg at a dance, I begin to feel like a naygur-manall fearful an timoreous. Give me a pipe an Ill tell on.
He lit a pipe, resumed his grip of his two friends, and rocked to and fro in a gale of laughter.
Mulvaney, said Ortheris sternly, taint no time for laughin. Youve given Jock an me more trouble than youre worth. You ave been absent without leave an youll go into cells for that; an you ave come back disgustinly dressed an most improper in the linin o that bloomin palanquin. Instid of which you laugh. An we thought you was dead all the time.
Bhoys, said the culprit, still shaking gently, whin Ive done my tale you may cry if you like, an little Orthris here can thrample my inside out. Ha done an listen. My performinces have been stupenjus: my luck has been the blessed luck av the British Armyan theres no betther than that. I went out dhrunk an dhrinkin in the palanquin, and I have come back a pink god. Did any of you go to Dearsley afther my time was up? He was at the bottom of ut all.
Ah said so, murmured Learoyd. To-morrow ahll smash t face in upon his heead.
Ye will not. Dearsleys a jool av a man. Afther Ortheris had put me into the palanquin an the six bearer-men were gruntin down the road, I tuk thought to mock Dearsley for that fight. So I tould thim, Go to the embankmint, and there, bein most amazin full, I shtuck my head out av the concern an passed compliments wid Dearsley. I must ha miscalled him outrageous, for whin I am that way the power av the tongue comes on me. I can bare remimber tellin him that his mouth opened endways like the mouth av a skate, which was thrue afther Learoyd had handled ut; an I clear remimber his takin no manner nor matter av offence, but givin me a big dhrink of beer. Twas the beer did the thrick, for I crawled back into the palanquin, steppin on me right ear wid me left foot, an thin I slept like the dead. Wanst I half-roused, an begad the noise in my head was tremenjusroarin an rattlin an poundin, such as was quite new to me. Mother av Mercy, thinks I, phwat a concertina I will have on my shoulders whin I wake! An wid that I curls mysilf up to sleep before ut should get hould on me. Bhoys, that noise was not dhrink, twas the rattle av a thrain!
There followed an impressive pause.
Yes, he had put me on a thrainput me, palanquin an all, an six black assassins av his own coolies that was in his nefarious confidence, on the flat av a ballast-thruck, and we were rowlin an bowlin along to Benares. Glory be that I did not wake up thin an introjuce mysilf to the coolies. As I was sayin, I slept for the betther part av a day an a night. But remimber you, that that man Dearsley had packed me off on wan av his material-thrains to Benares, all for to make me overstay my leave an get me into the cells.
The explanation was an eminently rational one. Benares lay at least ten hours by rail from the cantonments, and nothing in the world could have saved Mulvaney from arrest as a deserter had he appeared there in the apparel of his orgies. Dearsley had not forgotten to take revenge. Learoyd, drawing back a little, began to place soft blows over selected portions of Mulvaneys body. His thoughts were away on the embankment, and they meditated evil for Dearsley. Mulvaney continued
Whin I was full awake the palanquin was set down in a street, I suspicioned, for I cud hear people passin an talkin. But I knew well I was far from home. There is a queer smell upon our cantonmentsa smell av dried earth and brick-kilns wid whiffs av cavalry stable-litter. This place smelt marigold flowers an bad water, an wanst somethin alive came an blew heavy with his muzzle at the chink av the shutter. Its in a village I am, thinks I to mysilf, an the parochial buffalo is investigatin the palanquin. But anyways I had no desire to move. Only lie still whin youre in foreign parts an the standin luck av the British Army will carry ye through. That is an epigram. I made ut.
Thin a lot av whishperin divils surrounded the palanquin. Take ut up, sez wan man. But wholl pay us? sez another. The Maharanees minister, av coorse, sez the man. Oho! sez I to mysilf, Im a quane in me own right, wid a minister to pay me expenses. Ill be an emperor if I lie still long enough; but this is no village Ive found. I lay quiet, but I gummed me right eye to a crack av the shutters, an I saw that the whole street was crammed wid palanquins an horses, an a sprinklin av naked priests all yellow powder an tigers tails. But I may tell you, Orthris, an you, Learoyd, that av all the palanquins ours was the most imperial an magnificent. Now a palanquin means a native lady all the world over, except whin a soldier av the Quane happens to be takin a ride. Women an priests! sez I. Your fathers son is in the right pew this time, Terence. There will be proceedins. Six black divils in pink muslin tuk up the palanquin, an oh! but the rowlin an the rockin made me sick. Thin we got fair jammed among the palanquinsnot more than fifty av theman we grated an bumped like Queenstown potato-smacks in a runnin tide. I cud hear the women gigglin and squirkin in their palanquins, but mine was the royal equipage. They made way for ut, an, begad, the pink muslin men o mine were howlin, Room for the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun. Do you know aught av the lady, sorr?
Yes, said I. She is a very estimable old queen of the Central Indian States, and they say she is fat. How on earth could she go to Benares without all the city knowing her palanquin?
Twas the eternal foolishness av the naygurman. They saw the palanquin lying loneful an forlornsome, an the beauty av ut, after Dearsleys men had dhropped ut and gone away, an they gave ut the best name that occurred to thim. Quite right too. For aught we know the ould lady was thravellin incoglike me. Im glad to hear shes fat. I was no light weight mysilf, an my men were mortial anxious to dhrop me under a great big archway promiscuously ornamented wid the most improper carvins an cuttins I iver saw. Begad! they made me blushlike alike a Maharanee.
The temple of Prithi-Devi, I murmured, remembering the monstrous horrors of that sculptured archway at Benares.
Pretty Devilskins, savin your presence, sorr! There was nothin pretty about ut, except me. Twas all half dhark, an whin the coolies left they shut a big black gate behind av us, an half a company av fat yellow priests began pully-haulin the palanquins into a dharker place yeta big stone hall full av pillars, an gods, an incense, an all manner av similar thruck. The gate disconcerted me, for I perceived I wud have to go forward to get out, my retreat bein cut off. By the same token a good priest makes a bad palanquin-coolie. Begad! they nearly turned me inside out draggin the palanquin to the temple. Now the disposishin av the forces inside was this way. The Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarunthat was melay by the favour av Providence on the far left flank behind the dhark av a pillar carved with elephints heads. The remainder av the palanquins was in a big half circle facing in to the biggest, fattest, an most amazin she-god that iver I dreamed av. Her head ran up into the black above us, an her feet stuck out in the light av a little fire av melted butter that a priest was feedin out av a butter-dish. Thin a man began to sing an play on somethin back in the dhark, an twas a queer song. Ut made my hair lift on the back av my neck. Thin the doors av all the palanquins slid back, an the women bundled out. I saw what Ill niver see again. Twas more glorious than thransformations at a pantomime, for they was in pink an blue an silver an red an grass green, wid dimonds an imralds an great red rubies all over thim. But that was the least part av the glory. O bhoys, they were more lovely than the like av any loveliness in hiven; ay, their little bare feet were better than the white hands av a lords lady, an their mouths were like puckered roses, an their eyes were bigger an dharker than the eyes av any livin women Ive seen. Ye may laugh, but Im speakin truth. I niver saw the like, an niver I will again.
Seeing that in all probability you were watching the wives and daughters of most of the kings of India, the chances are that you wont, I said, for it was dawning on me that Mulvaney had stumbled upon a big Queens Praying at Benares.
I niver will, he said mournfully. That sight doesnt come twist to any man. It made me ashamed to watch. A fat priest knocked at my door. I didnt think hed have the insolince to disturb the Maharanee av Gokral-Seetarun, so I lay still. The old cows asleep, sez he to another. Let her be, sez that. Twill be long before she has a calf! I might ha known before he spoke that all a woman prays for in Injiaan for matter o that in England tois childher. That made me more sorry Id come, me bein, as you well know, a childless man.
He was silent for a moment, thinking of his little son, dead many years ago.
They prayed, an the butter-fires blazed up, an the incense turned everything blue, an between that an the fires the women looked as tho they were all ablaze an twinklin. They took hold av the she- gods knees, they cried out an they threw themselves about, an that world-without-end-amen music was dhrivin thim mad. Mother av Hiven! how they cried, an the ould she-god grinni above thim all so scornful! The dhrink was dyin out in me fast, an I was thinkin harder than the thoughts wud go through my headthinkin how to get out, an all manner of nonsense as well. The women were rockin in rows, their dimond belts clickin, an the tears runnin out betune their hands, an the lights were goin lower an dharker. Thin there was a blaze like lightnin from the roof, an that showed me the inside av the palanquin, an at the end where my foot was, stood the livin spit an image o mysilf worked on the linin. This man here, ut was.
He hunted in the folds of his pink cloak, ran a hand under one, and thrust into the firelight a foot-long embroidered presentment of the great god Krishna, playing on a flute. The heavy jowl, the staring eye, and the blue-black moustache of the god made up a far-off resemblance to Mulvaney.
The blaze was gone in a wink, but the whole schame came to me thin. I believe I was mad too. I slid the off-shutter open an rowled out into the dhark behind the elephint-head pillar, tucked up my trousies to my knees, slipped off my boots an tuk a general hould av all the pink linin av the palanquin. Glory be, ut ripped out like a womans dhriss when you tread on ut at a sergeants ball, an a bottle came with ut. I tuk the bottle an the next minut I was out av the dhark av the pillar, the pink linin wrapped round me most graceful, the music thunderin like kettledrums, an a could draft blowin round my bare legs. By this hand that did ut, I was Krishna tootlin on the flutethe god that the rigmental chaplain talks about. A sweet sight I must ha looked. I knew my eyes were big, and my face was wax-white, an at the worst I must ha looked like a ghost. But they took me for the livin god. The music stopped, and the women were dead dumb, an I crooked my legs like a shepherd on a china basin, an I did the ghost-waggle with my feet as I had done ut at the rig mental theatre many times, an I slid acrost the width av that temple in front av the she-god tootlin on the beer bottle.
Wot did you toot? demanded Ortheris the practical.
Me? Oh! Mulvaney sprang up, suiting the action to the word, and sliding gravely in front of us, a dilapidated but imposing deity in the half light. I sang
Only say Youll be Mrs. Brallaghan. Dont say nay, Charmin Judy Callaghan. |
I didnt know me own voice when I sang. An oh! twas pitiful to see the women. The darlins were down on their faces. Whin I passed the last wan I cud see her poor little fingers workin one in another as if she wanted to touch my feet. So I dhrew the tail av this pink overcoat over her head for the greater honour, an I slid into the dhark on the other side av the temple, and fetched up in the arms av a big fat priest. All I wanted was to get away clear. So I tuk him by his greasy throat an shut the speech out av him. Out! sez I. Which way, ye fat heathen?Oh! sez he. Man, sez I. White man, soldier man, common soldier man. Where in the name av confusion is the back door? The women in the temple were still on their faces, an a young priest was holdin out his arms above their heads.
This way, sez my fat friend, duckin behind a big bull-god an divin into a passage. Thin I remimbered that I must ha made the miraculous reputation av that temple for the next fifty years. Not so fast, I sez, an I held out both my hands wid a wink. That ould thief smiled like a father. I tuk him by the back av the neck in case he should be wishful to put a knife into me unbeknowst, an I ran him up an down the passage twice to collect his sensibilities! Be quiet, sez he, in English. Now you talk sense, I sez. Fwhatll you give me for the use av that most iligant palanquin I have no time to take away?Dont tell, sez he. Is ut like? sez I. But ye might give me my railway fare. Im far from my home an Ive done you a service. Bhoys, tis a good thing to be a priest. The ould man niver throubled himself to dhraw from a bank. As I will prove to you subsequint, he philandered all round the slack av his clothes an began dribblin ten-rupee notes, old gold mohurs, and rupees into my hand till I could hould no more.
You lie! said Ortheris. Youre mad or sunstrook. A native dont give coin unless you cut it out o im. Taint nature.
Then my lie an my sunstroke is concealed under that lump av sod yonder, retorted Mulvaney unruffled, nodding across the scrub. An theres a dale more in nature than your squidgy little legs have iver taken you to, Orthris, me son. Four hundred an thirty-four rupees by my reckonin, an a big fat gold necklace that I took from him as a remimbrancer, was our share in that business.
An e give it you for love? said Ortheris.
We were alone in that passage. Maybe I was a trifle too pressin, but considher fwhat I had done for the good av the temple and the iverlastin joy av those women. Twas cheap at the price. I wud ha taken more if I cud ha found ut. I turned the ould man upside down at the last, but he was milked dhry. Thin he opened a door in another passage an I found mysilf up to my knees in Benares river-water, an bad smellin ut is. More by token I had come out on the river-line close to the burnin ghat and contagious to a cracklin corpse. This was in the heart av the night, for I had been four hours in the temple. There was a crowd av boats tied up, so I tuk wan an wint across the river. Thin I came home acrost country, lyin up by day.
How on earth did you manage? I said.
How did Sir Frederick Roberts get from Cabul to Candahar? He marched an he niver tould how near he was to breakin down. Thats why he is fwhat he is. An now Mulvaney yawned portentously. Now I will go an give myself up for absince widout leave. Its eight an twenty days an the rough end of the colonels tongue in orderly room, any way you look at ut. But tis cheap at the price.
Mulvaney, said I softly. If there happens to be any sort of excuse that the colonel can in any way accept, I have a notion that youll get nothing more than the dressing-down. The new recruits are in, and
Not a word more, sorr. Is ut excuses the old man wants? Tis not my way, but he shall have thim. Ill tell him I was engaged in financial operations connected wid a church, and he flapped his way to cantonments and the cells, singing lustily
So they sent a corprils file, And they put me in the gyard-room For conduck unbecomin of a soldier. |
And when he was lost in the mist of the moonlight we could hear the refrain
Bang upon the big drum, bash upon the cymbals, As we go marchin along, boys, oh! For although in this campaign Theres no whisky nor champagne, Well keep our spirits goin with a song, oys! |
Therewith he surrendered himself to the joyful and almost weeping guard, and was made much of by his fellows. But to the colonel he said that he had been smitten with sunstroke and had lain insensible on a villagers cot for untold hours; and between laughter and goodwill the affair was smoothed over, so that he could, next day, teach the new recruits how to Fear God, Honour the Queen, Shoot Straight, and Keep Clean.
Unluckily he did not observe that three miles to his right flank a flying column of Northern horse with a detachment of Ghoorkhas and British troops had been pushed round as fast as the failing light allowed, to cut across the entire rear of the Southern Army,to break, as it were, all the ribs of the fan where they converged by striking at the transport, reserve ammunition, and artillery supplies. Their instructions were to go in, avoiding the few scouts who might not have been drawn off by the pursuit, and create sufficient excitement to impress the Southern Army with the wisdom of guarding their own flank and rear before they captured cities. It was a pretty manuvre, neatly carried out.
Speaking for the second division of the Southern Army, our first intimation of the attack was at twilight, when the artillery were labouring in deep sand, most of the escort were trying to help them out, and the main body of the infantry had gone on. A Noahs Ark of elephants, camels, and the mixed menagerie of an Indian transport-train bubbled and squealed behind the guns, when there appeared from nowhere in particular British infantry to the extent of three companies, who sprang to the heads of the gun-horses and brought all to a standstill amid oaths and cheers.
Hows that, umpire? said the major commanding the attack, and with one voice the drivers and limber gunners answered Hout! while the colonel of artillery sputtered.
All your scouts are charging our main body, said the major. Your flanks are unprotected for two miles. I think weve broken the back of this division. And listen,there go the Ghoorkhas!
A weak fire broke from the rear-guard more than a mile away, and was answered by cheerful howlings. The Ghoorkhas, who should have swung clear of the second division, had stepped on its tail in the dark, but drawing off hastened to reach the next line of attack, which lay almost parallel to us five or six miles away.
Our column swayed and surged irresolutely,three batteries, the divisional ammunition reserve, the baggage, and a section of the hospital and bearer corps. The commandant ruefully promised to report himself cut up to the nearest umpire, and commending his cavalry and all other cavalry to the special care of Eblis, toiled on to resume touch with the rest of the division.
Well bivouac here to-night, said the major, I have a notion that the Ghoorkhas will get caught. They may want us to re-form on. Stand easy till the transport gets away.
A hand caught my beasts bridle and led him out of the choking dust; a larger hand deftly canted me out of the saddle; and two of the hugest hands in the world received me sliding. Pleasant is the lot of the special correspondent who falls into such hands as those of Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris, and Learoyd.
An thats all right, said the Irishman calmly. We thought wed find you somewheres here by. Is there anything av yours in the transport? Orthrisll fetch ut out.
Ortheris did fetch ut out, from under the trunk of an elephant, in the shape of a servant and an animal both laden with medical comforts. The little mans eyes sparkled.
If the brutil an licentious soldiery av these parts gets sight av the thruck, said Mulvaney, making practised investigation, theyll loot evrything. Theyre bein fed on iron-filins an dog-biscuit these days, but glorys no compensation for a belly-ache. Praise be, were here to protect you, sorr. Beer, sausage, bread (soft an thats a curosity), soup in a tin, whisky by the smell av ut, an fowls! Mother av Moses, but ye take the field like a confectioner! Tis scandlus.
Eres a orficer, said Ortheris significantly. When the sergents done lushin the privit may clean the pot.
I bundled several things into Mulvaneys haversack before the majors hand fell on my shoulder and he said tenderly, Requisitioned for the Queens service. Wolseley was quite wrong about special correspondents: they are the soldiers best friends. Come and take pot-luck with us to-night.
And so it happened amid laughter and shoutings that my well-considered commissariat melted away to reappear later at the mess-table, which was a waterproof sheet spread on the ground. The flying column had taken three days rations with it, and there be few things nastier than Government rationsespecially when Government is experimenting with German toys. Erbswurst, tinned beef of surpassing tinniness, compressed vegetables, and meat-biscuits may be nourishing, but what Thomas Atkins needs is bulk in his inside. The major, assisted by his brother officers, purchased goats for the camp, and so made the experiment of no effect. Long before the fatigue-party sent to collect brushwood had returned, the men were settled down by their valises, kettles and pots had appeared from the surrounding country, and were dangling over fires as the kid and the compressed vegetable bubbled together; there rose a cheerful clinking of mess-tins; outrageous demands for a little more stuffin with that there liver-wing; and gust on gust of chaff as pointed as a bayonet and as delicate as a gun-butt.
The boys are in a good temper, said the major. Theyll be singing presently. Well, a night like this is enough to keep them happy.
Over our heads burned the wonderful Indian stars, which are not all pricked in on one plane, but, preserving an orderly perspective, draw the eye through the velvet darkness of the void up to the barred doors of heaven itself. The earth was a gray shadow more unreal than the sky. We could hear her breathing lightly in the pauses between the howling of the jackals, the movement of the wind in the tamarisks, and the fitful mutter of musketry-fire leagues away to the left. A native woman from some unseen hut began to sing, the mail-train thundered past on its way to Delhi, and a roosting crow cawed drowsily. Then there was a belt-loosening silence about the fires, and the even breathing of the crowded earth took up the story.
The men, full fed, turned to tobacco and song,their officers with them. The subaltern is happy who can win the approval of the musical critics in his regiment, and is honoured among the more intricate step-dancers. By him, as by him who plays cricket cleverly, Thomas Atkins will stand in time of need, when he will let a better officer go on alone. The ruined tombs of forgotten Mussulman saints heard the ballad of Agra Town, The Buffalo Battery, Marching to Kabul, The long, long Indian Day, The Place where the Punkah-coolie died, and that crashing chorus which announces,
Youths daring spirit, manhoods fire, Firm hand and eagle eye, Must he acquire, who would aspire To see the gray boar die. |
To-day, of all those jovial thieves who appropriated my commissariat and lay and laughed round that waterproof sheet, not one remains. They went to camps that were not of exercise and battles without umpires. Burmah, the Soudan, and the frontier,fever and fight,took them in their time.
I drifted across to the mens fires in search of Mulvaney, whom I found strategically greasing his feet by the blaze. There is nothing particularly lovely in the sight of a private thus engaged after a long days march, but when you reflect on the exact proportion of the might, majesty, dominion, and power of the British Empire which stands on those feet you take an interest in the proceedings.
Theres a blister, bad luck to ut, on the heel, said Mulvaney. I cant touch ut. Prick ut out, little man.
Ortheris took out his house-wife, eased the trouble with a needle, stabbed Mulvaney in the calf with the same weapon, and was swiftly kicked into the fire.
Ive bruk the best av my toes over you, ye grinnin child av disruption, said Mulvaney, sitting cross- legged and nursing his feet; then seeing me, Oh, uts you, sorr! Be welkim, an take that maraudin scutts place. Jock, hold him down on the cindhers for a bit.
But Ortheris escaped and went elsewhere, as I took possession of the hollow he had scraped for himself and lined with his greatcoat. Learoyd on the other side of the fire grinned affably and in a minute fell fast asleep.
Theres the height av politeness for you, said Mulvaney, lighting his pipe with a flaming branch. But Jocks eaten half a box av your sardines at wan gulp, an I think the tin too. Whats the best wid you, sorr, an how did you happen to be on the losin side this day whin we captured you?
The Army of the South is winning all along the line, I said.
Then that lines the hangmans rope, savin your presence. Youll learn to-morrow how we rethreated to dhraw thim on before we made thim trouble, an thats what a woman does. By the same tokin, well be attacked before the dawnin an ut would be betther not to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us ever so far inside av the enemys flank an a crowd av roarin, tarin, squealin cavalry gone on just to turn out the whole hornets nest av them. Av course the enemy will pursue, by brigades like as not, an thin well have to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion av Polonius whin he said, Dont fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy av fightin, but if you do, knock the nose av him first an frequint. We ought to ha gone on an helped the Ghoorkhas.
But what do you know about Polonius? I demanded. This was a new side of Mulvaneys character.
All that Shakespeare iver wrote an a dale more that the gallery shouted, said the man of war, carefully lacing his boots. Did I not tell you av Silvers theatre in Dublin whin I was younger than I am now an a patron av the drama? Ould Silver wud never pay actorman or woman their just dues, an by consequince his compnies was collapsible at the last minut. Thin the bhoys wud clamour to take a part, an oft as not ould Silver made them pay for the fun. Faith, Ive seen Hamlut played wid a new black eye an the queen as full as a cornucopia. I remimber wanst Hogin that listed in the Black Tyrone an was shot in South Africa, he sejuced ould Silver into givin him Hamluts part instid av me that had a fine fancy for rhetoric in those days. Av course I wint into the gallery an began to fill the pit wid other peoples hats, an I passed the time av day to Hogin walkin through Denmark like a hamstrung mule wid a pall on his back. Hamlut, sez I, theres a hole in your heel. Pull up your shtockins, Hamlut, sez I. Hamlut, Hamlut, for the love av decincy dhrop that skull an pull up your shtockins. The whole house begun to tell him that. He stopped his soliloquishms mid-between. My shtockins may be comin down or they may not, sez he, screwin his eye into the gallery, for well he knew who I was. But afther this performince is over me an the Ghostll trample the tripes out av you, Terence, wid your asss bray! An thats how I come to know about Hamlut. Eyah! Those days, those days! Did you iver have onendin devilmint an nothin to pay for it in your life, sorr?
Never, without having to pay, I said.
Thats thrue! Tis mane whin you considher on ut; but uts the same wid horse or fut. A headache if you dhrink, an a belly-ache if you eat too much, an a heart-ache to kape all down. Faith, the beast only gets the colic, an hes the lucky man.
He dropped his head and stared into the fire, fingering his moustache the while. From the far side of the bivouac the voice of Corbet-Nolan, senior subaltern of B company, uplifted itself in an ancient and much appreciated song of sentiment, the men moaning melodiously behind him.
The north wind blew coldly, she drooped from that hour, My own little Kathleen, my sweet little Kathleen, Kathleen, my Kathleen, Kathleen OMoore! |
With forty-five Os in the last word: even at that distance you might have cut the soft South Irish accent with a shovel.
For all we take we must pay, but the price is cruel high, murmured Mulvaney when the chorus had ceased.
Whats the trouble? I said gently, for I knew that he was a man of an inextinguishable sorrow.
Hear now, said he. Ye know what I am now. I know what I mint to be at the beginnin av my service. Ive tould you time an again, an what I have not Dinah Shadd has. An what am I? Oh, Mary Mother av Hiven, an ould dhrunken, untrustable baste av a privit that has seen the regment change out from colonel to drummer-boy, not wanst or twice, but scores av times! Ay, scores! An me not so near gettin promotion as in the first! An me livin on an kapin clear av clink, not by my own good conduck, but the kindness av some orfcer-bhoy young enough to be son to me? Do I not know ut? Can I not tell whin Im passed over at prade, tho Im rockin full av liquor an ready to fall all in wan piece, such as even a suckin child might see, bekaze, Oh, tis only ould Mulvaney! An whin Im let off in ordly-room through some thrick of the tongue an a ready answer an the ould mans mercy, is ut smilin I feel whin I fall away an go back to Dinah Shadd, thryin to carry ut all off as a joke? Not I! Tis hell to me, dumb hell through ut all; an next time whin the fit comes I will be as bad again. Good cause the regment has to know me for the best soldier in ut. Better cause have I to know mesilf for the worst man. Im only fit to tache the new drafts what Ill niver learn myself; an I am sure, as tho I heard ut, that the minut wan av these pink-eyed recruities gets away from my Mind ye now, an Listen to this, Jim, bhoy,sure I am that the sergint houlds me up to him for a warnin. So I tache, as they say at musketry-instruction, by direct and ricochet fire. Lord be good to me, for I have stud some throuble!
Lie down and go to sleep, said I, not being able to comfort or advise. Youre the best man in the regiment, and, next to Ortheris, the biggest fool. Lie down and wait till were attacked. What force will they turn out? Guns, think you?
Try that wid your lorrds an ladies, twistin an turnin the talk, tho you mint ut well. Ye cud say nothin to help me, an yet ye niver knew what cause I had to be what I am.
Begin at the beginning and go on to the end, I said royally. But rake up the fire a bit first.
I passed Ortheriss bayonet for a poker.
That shows how little we know what we do, said Mulvaney, putting it aside. Fire takes all the heart out av the steel, an the next time, may be, that our little man is fighting for his life his bradawlll break, an so youll ha killed him, manin no more than to kape yourself warm. Tis a recruitys thrick that. Pass the clanin-rod, sorr.
I snuggled down abashed; and after an interval the voice of Mulvaney began.
Did I iver tell you how Dinah Shadd came to be wife av mine?
I dissembled a burning anxiety that I had felt for some monthsever since Dinah Shadd, the strong, the patient, and the infinitely tender, had of her own good love and free will washed a shirt for me, moving in a barren land where washing was not.
I cant remember, I said casually. Was it before or after you made love to Annie Bragin, and got no satisfaction?
The story of Annie Bragin is written in another place. It is one of the many less respectable episodes in Mulvaneys chequered career.
Beforebeforelong before, was that business av Annie Bragin an the corprils ghost. Niver woman was the worse for me whin I had married Dinah. Theres a time for all things, an I know how to kape all things in placebarrin the dhrink, that kapes me in my place wid no hope av comin to be aught else.
Begin at the beginning, I insisted. Mrs. Mulvaney told me that you married her when you were quartered in Krab Bokhar barracks.
An the same is a cess-pit, said Mulvaney piously. She spoke thrue, did Dinah. Twas this way. Talkin av that, have ye iver fallen in love, sorr?
I preserved the silence of the damned. Mulvaney continued
Thin I will assume that ye have not. I did. In the days av my youth, as I have more than wanst tould you, I was a man that filled the eye an delighted the sowl av women. Niver man was hated as I have bin. Niver man was loved as Ino, not within half a days march av ut! For the first five years av my service, whin I was what I wud give my sowl to be now, I tuk whatever was within my reach an digested utan thats more than most men can say. Dhrink I tuk, an ut did me no harm. By the Hollow av Hiven, I cud play wid four women at wanst, an kape them from findin out anythin about the other three, an smile like a full-blown marigold through ut all. Dick Coulhan, av the battery well have down on us to-night, could drive his team no better than I mine, an I hild the worser cattle! An so I lived, an so I was happy till afther that business wid Annie Braginshe that turned me off as cool as a meat-safe, an taught me where I stud in the mind av an honest woman. Twas no sweet dose to swallow.
Afther that I sickened awhile an tuk thought to my regmental work; conceiting mesilf I wud study an be a sargint, an a major-gineral twinty minutes afther that. But on top av my ambitiousness there was an empty place in my sowl, an me own opinion av mesilf cud not fill ut. Sez I to mesilf, Terence, youre a great man an the best set-up in the regmint. Go on an get promotion. Sez mesilf to me, What for? Sez I to mesilf, For the glory av ut! Sez mesilf to me, Will that fill these two strong arrums av yours, Terence?Go to the devil, sez I to mesilf. Go to the married lines, sez mesilf to me. Tis the same thing, sez I to mesilf. Av youre the same man, ut is, said mesilf to me; an wid that I considhered on ut a long while. Did you iver feel that way, sorr?
I snored gently, knowing that if Mulvaney were uninterrupted he would go on. The clamour from the bivouac fires beat up to the stars, as the rival singers of the companies were pitted against each other.
So I felt that way an a bad time ut was. Wanst, bein a fool, I wint into the married lines more for the sake av spakin to our ould colour-sergint Shadd than for any thruck wid women-folk. I was a corpril thenrejuced aftherwards, but a corpril then. Ive got a photograft av mesilf to prove ut. Youll take a cup av tay wid us? sez Shadd. I will that, I sez, tho tay is not my divarsion.
Twud be better for you if ut were, sez ould Mother Shadd, an she had ought to know, for Shadd, in the ind av his service, dhrank bungfull each night.
Wid that I tuk off my glovesthere was pipeclay in thim, so that they stud alonean pulled up my chair, lookin round at the china ornaments an bits av things in the Shadds quarters. They were things that belonged to a man, an no camp-kit, here to-day an dishipated next. Youre comfortable in this place, sergint, sez I. Tis the wife that did ut, boy, sez he, pointin the stem av his pipe to ould Mother Shadd, an she smacked the top av his bald head apon the compliment. That manes you want money, sez she.
An thinan thin whin the kettle was to be filled, Dinah came inmy Dinahher sleeves rowled up to the elbow an her hair in a winkin glory over her forehead, the big blue eyes beneath twinklin like stars on a frosty night, an the tread av her two feet lighter than waste-paper from the colonels basket in ordly-room whin uts emptied. Bein but a shlip av a girl she went pink at seein me, an I twisted me moustache an looked at a picture forninst the wall. Niver show a woman that ye care the snap av a finger for her, an begad shell come bleatin to your boot-heels!
I suppose thats why you followed Annie Bragin till everybody in the married quarters laughed at you, said I, remembering that unhallowed wooing and casting off the disguise of drowsiness.
Im layin down the ginral theory av the attack, said Mulvaney, driving his boot into the dying fire. If you read the Soldiers Pocket Book, which niver any soldier reads, youll see that there are exceptions. Whin Dinah was out av the door (an twas as tho the sunlight had shut too)Mother av Hiven, sergint, sez I, but is that your daughter?Ive believed that way these eighteen years, sez ould Shadd, his eyes twinklin; but Mrs. Shadd has her own opinion, like ivry woman.Tis wid yours this time, for a mericle, sez Mother Shadd. Thin why in the name av fortune did I niver see her before? sez I. Bekaze youve been thrapesin round wid the married women these three years past. She was a bit av a child till last year, an she shot up wid the spring, sez ould Mother Shadd. Ill thrapese no more, sez I. Dyou mane that? sez ould Mother Shadd, lookin at me side-ways like a hen looks at a hawk whin the chickens are runnin free. Try me, an tell, sez I. Wid that I pulled on my gloves, dhrank off the tay, an went out av the house as stiff as at ginral prade, for well I knew that Dinah Shadds eyes were in the small av my back out av the scullery window. Faith! that was the only time I mourned I was not a cavlry man for the pride av the spurs to jingle.
I wint out to think, an I did a powerful lot av thinkin, but ut all came round to that shlip av a girl in the dotted blue dhress, wid the blue eyes an the sparkil in them. Thin I kept off canteen, an I kept to the married quarthers, or near by, on the chanst av meetin Dinah. Did I meet her? Oh, my time past, did I not; wid a lump in my throat as big as my valise an my heart goin like a farriers forge on a Saturday morning? Twas Good day to ye, Miss Dinah, an Good day tyou, corpril, for a week or two, and divil a bit further could I get bekaze av the respect I had to that girl that I cud ha broken betune finger an thumb.
Here I giggled as I recalled the gigantic figure of Dinah Shadd when she handed me my shirt.
Ye may laugh, grunted Mulvaney. But Im speakin the trut, an tis you that are in fault. Dinah was a girl that wud ha taken the imperiousness out av the Duchess av Clonmel in those days. Flower hand, foot av shod air, an the eyes av the livin mornin she had that is my wife to-dayould Dinah, and niver aught else than Dinah Shadd to me.
Twas after three weeks standin off an on, an niver makin headway excipt through the eyes, that a little drummer-boy grinned in me face whin I had admonished him wid the buckle av my belt for riotin all over the place. An Im not the only wan that doesnt kape to barricks, sez he. I tuk him by the scruff av his neck,my heart was hung on a hair-thrigger those days, you will onderstandan Out wid ut, sez I, or Ill lave no bone av you unbreakable.Speak to Dempsey, sez he howlin. Dempsey which? sez I, ye unwashed limb av Satan.Av the Bob-tailed Dhragoons, sez he. Hes seen her home from her aunts house in the civil lines four times this fortnight.Child! sez I, dhroppin him, your tongues stronger than your body. Go to your quarters. Im sorry I dhressed you down.
At that I went four ways to wanst huntin Dempsey. I was mad to think that wid all my airs among women I shud ha been chated by a basin-faced fool av a cavlryman not fit to trust on a trunk. Presintly I found him in our linesthe Bobtails was quartered next usan a tallowy, topheavy son av a she-mule he was wid his big brass spurs an his plastrons on his epigastrons an all. But he niver flinched a hair.
A word wid you, Dempsey, sez I. Youve walked wid Dinah Shadd four times this fortnight gone.
Whats that to you? sez he. Ill walk forty times more, an forty on top av that, ye shovel-futted clod-breakin infantry lance-corpril.
Before I cud gyard he had his gloved fist home on my cheek an down I went full-sprawl. Will that content you? sez he, blowin on his knuckles for all the world like a Scots Greys orfcer. Content! sez I. For your own sake, man, take off your spurs, peel your jackut, an onglove. Tis the beginnin av the overture; stand up!
He stud all he know, but he niver peeled his jacket, an his shoulders had no fair play. I was fightin for Dinah Shadd an that cut on my cheek. What hope had he forninst me? Stand up, sez I, time an again whin he was beginnin to quarter the ground an gyard high an go large. This isnt ridin-school, I sez. O man, stand up an let me get in at ye. But whin I saw he wud be runnin about, I grup his shtock in my left an his waist-belt in my right an swung him clear to my right front, head undher, he hammerin my nose till the wind was knocked out av him on the bare ground. Stand up, sez I, or Ill kick your head into your chest! and I wud ha done ut too, so ragin mad I was.
My collar bones bruk, sez he. Help me back to lines. Ill walk wid her no more. So I helped him back.
And was his collar-bone broken? I asked, for I fancied that only Learoyd could neatly accomplish that terrible throw.
He pitched on his left shoulder-point. Ut was. Next day the news was in both barricks, an whin I met Dinah Shadd wid a cheek on me like all the regmintal tailors samples there was no Good mornin, corpril, or aught else. An what have I done, Miss Shadd, sez I, very bould, plantin mesilf forninst her, that ye should not pass the time of day?
Yeve half-killed rough-rider Dempsey, sez she, her dear blue eyes fillin up.
May be, sez I. Was he a friend av yours that saw ye home four times in the fortnight?
Yes, sez she, but her mouth was down at the corners. Anan whats that to you? she sez.
Ask Dempsey, sez I, purtendin to go away.
Did you fight for me then, ye silly man? she sez, tho she knew ut all along.
Who else? sez I, an I tuk wan pace to the front.
I wasnt worth ut, sez she, fingerin in her apron.
Thats for me to say, sez I. Shall I say ut?
Yes, sez she in a saints whisper, an at that I explained mesilf; and she tould me what ivry man that is a man, an many that is a woman, hears wanst in his life.
But what made ye cry at startin, Dinah, darlin? sez I.
Youryour bloody cheek, sez she, duckin her little head down on my sash (I was on duty for the day) an whimperin like a sorrowful angil.
Now a man cud take that two ways. I tuk ut as pleased me best an my first kiss wid ut. Mother av Innocence! but I kissed her on the tip av the nose an undher the eye; an a girl that lets a kiss come tumbleways like that has never been kissed before. Take note av that, sorr. Thin we wint hand in hand to ould Mother Shadd like two little childher, an she said twas no bad thing, an ould Shadd nodded behind his pipe, an Dinah ran away to her own room. That day I throd on rollin clouds. All earth was too small to hould me. Begad, I cud ha hiked the sun out av the sky for a live coal to my pipe, so magnificent I was. But I tuk recruities at squad-drill instid, an began wid general battalion advance whin I shud ha been balance-steppin them. Eyah! that day! that day!
A very long pause. Well? said I.
Twas all wrong, said Mulvaney, with an enormous sigh. An I know that evry bit av ut was my own foolishness. That night I tuk maybe the half av three pintsnot enough to turn the hair of a man in his natural senses. But I was more than half drunk wid pure joy, an that canteen beer was so much whisky to me. I cant tell how it came about, but bekaze I had no thought for anywan except Dinah, bekaze I hadnt slipped her little white arms from my neck five minuts, bekaze the breath of her kiss was not gone from my mouth, I must go through the married lines on my way to quarters, an I must stay talkin to a red-headed Mullingar heifer av a girl, Judy Sheehy, that was daughter to Mother Sheehy, the wife of Nick Sheehy, the canteen-sergintthe Black Curse av Shielygh be on the whole brood that are above groun this day!
An what are ye houldin your head that high for, corpril? sez Judy. Come in an thry a cup av tay, she sez, standin in the doorway. Bein an ontrustable fool, an thinkin av anything but tay, I wint.
Mothers at canteen, sez Judy, smoothin the hair av hers that was like red snakes, an lookin at me corner-ways out av her green cats eyes. Ye will not mind, corpril?
I can endure, sez I; ould Mother Sheehy bein no divarsion av mine, nor her daughter too. Judy fetched the tea things an put thim on the table, leanin over me very close to get thim square. I dhrew back, thinkin av Dinah.
Is ut afraid you are av a girl alone? sez Judy.
No, sez I. Why should I be?
That rests wid the girl, sez Judy, dhrawin her chair next to mine.
Thin there let ut rest, sez I; an thinkin Id been a trifle onpolite, I sez, The tays not quite sweet enough for my taste. Put your little finger in the cup, Judy. Twill make ut necthar.
Whats necthar? sez she.
Somethin very sweet, sez I; an for the sinful life av me I cud not help lookin at her out av the corner av my eye, as I was used to look at a woman.
Go on wid ye, corpril, sez she. Youre a flirrt.
On me sowl Im not, sez I.
Then youre a cruel handsome man, an thats worse, sez she, heaving big sighs an lookin crossways.
You know your own mind, sez I.
Twud be better for me if I did not, she sez.
Theres a dale to be said on both sides av that, sez I, unthinkin.
Say your own part av ut, then, Terence, darlin, sez she; for begad Im thinkin Ive said too much or too little for an honest girl, an wid that she put her arms round my neck an kissed me.
Theres no more to be said afther that, sez I, kissin her back againOh the mane scutt that I was, my head ringin wid Dinah Shadd! How does ut come about, sorr, that when a man has put the comether on wan woman, hes sure bound to put it on another? Tis the same thing at musketry. Wan day ivry shot goes wide or into the bank, an the next, lay high lay low, sight or snap, ye cant get off the bulls-eye for ten shots runnin.
That only happens to a man who has had a good deal of experience. He does it without thinking, I replied.
Thankin you for the complimint, sorr, ut may be so. But Im doubtful whether you mint ut for a complimint. Hear now; I sat there wid Judy on my knee tellin me all manner av nonsinse an only sayin yes an no, when Id much better ha kept tongue betune teeth. An that was not an hour afther I had left Dinah! What I was thinkin av I cannot say. Presintly, quiet as a cat, ould Mother Sheehy came in velvet-dhrunk. She had her daughters red hair, but twas bald in patches, an I cud see in her wicked ould face, clear as lightnin, what Judy wud be twenty years to come. I was for jumpin up, but Judy niver moved.
Terence has promust, mother, sez she, an the could sweat bruk out all over me. Ould Mother Sheehy sat down of a heap an began playin wid the cups. Thin youre a well-matched pair, she sez very thick. For hes the biggest rogue that iver spoiled the Queens shoe-leather, an
Im off, Judy, sez I. Ye should not talk nonsinse to your mother. Get her to bed, girl.
Nonsinse! sez the ould woman, prickin up her ears like a cat an grippin the table-edge. Twill be the most nonsinsical nonsinse for you, ye grinnin badger, if nonsinse tis. Git clear, you. Im goin to bed.
I ran out into the dhark, my head in a stew an my heart sick, but I had sinse enough to see that Id brought ut all on mysilf. Its this to pass the time av day to a panjandhrum av hellcats, sez I. What Ive said, an what Ive not said do not matther. Judy an her dam will hould me for a promust man, an Dinah will give me the go, an I desarve ut. I will go an get dhrunk, sez I, an forget about ut, for tis plain Im not a marrin man.
On my way to canteen I ran against Lascelles, colour-sergeant that was av E Compny, a hard, hard man, wid a torment av a wife. Youve the head av a drowned man on your shoulders, sez he; an youre goin where youll get a worse wan. Come back, sez he. Let me go, sez I. Ive thrown my luck over the wall wid my own hand!Then thats not the way to get ut back again, sez he. Have out wid your throuble, ye fool-bhoy. An I tould him how the matther was.
He sucked in his lower lip. Youve been thrapped, sez he. Ju Sheehy wud be the betther for a mans name to hers as soon as can. An ye thought yed put the comether on her,thats the natural vanity of the baste. Terence, youre a big born fool, but youre not bad enough to marry into that compny. If you said anythin, an for all your protestations Im sure ye didor did not, which is worse,eat ut alllie like the father of all lies, but come out av ut free av Judy. Do I not know what ut is to marry a woman that was the very spit an image av Judy whin she was young? Im gettin old an Ive larnt patience, but you, Terence, youd raise hand on Judy an kill her in a year. Never mind if Dinah gives you the go, youve desarved ut; never mind if the whole regmint laughs you all day. Get shut av Judy an her mother. They cant dhrag you to church, but if they do, theyll dhrag you to hell. Go back to your quarters and lie down, sez he. Thin over his shoulder, You must ha done with thim.
Next day I wint to see Dinah, but there was no tucker in me as I walked. I knew the throuble wud come soon enough widout any handlin av mine, an I dreaded ut sore.
I heard Judy callin me, but I hild straight on to the Shadds quarthers, an Dinah wud ha kissed me but I put her back.
Whin alls said, darlin, sez I, you can give ut me if ye will, tho I misdoubt twill be so easy to come by then.
I had scarce begun to put the explanation into shape before Judy an her mother came to the door. I think there was a verandah, but Im forgettin.
Will ye not step in? sez Dinah, pretty and polite, though the Shadds had no dealins with the Sheehys. Old Mother Shadd looked up quick, an she was the fust to see the throuble; for Dinah was her daughter.
Im pressed for time to-day, sez Judy as bould as brass; an Ive only come for Terence,my promust man. Tis strange to find him here the day afther the day.
Dinah looked at me as though I had hit her, an I answered straight.
There was some nonsinse last night at the Sheehys quarthers, an Judys carryin on the joke, darlin, sez I.
At the Sheehys quarthers? sez Dinah very slow, an Judy cut in wid: He was there from nine till ten, Dinah Shadd, an the betther half av that time I was sittin on his knee, Dinah Shadd. Ye may look and ye may look an ye may look me up an down, but ye wont look away that Terence is my promust man. Terence, darlin, tis time for us to be comin home.
Dinah Shadd niver said word to Judy. Ye left me at half-past eight, she sez to me, an I niver thought that yed leave me for Judy,promises or no promises. Go back wid her, you that have to be fetched by a girl! Im done with you, sez she, and she ran into her own room, her mother followin. So I was alone wid those two women and at liberty to spake my sentiments.
Judy Sheehy, sez I, if you made a fool av me betune the lights you shall not do ut in the day. I niver promised you words or lines.
You lie, sez ould Mother Sheehy, an may ut choke you where you stand! She was far gone in dhrink.
An tho ut choked me where I stud Id not change, sez I. Go home, Judy. I take shame for a decent girl like you dhraggin your mother out bare-headed on this errand. Hear now, and have ut for an answer. I gave my word to Dinah Shadd yesterday, an, more blame to me, I was wid you last night talkin nonsinse but nothin more. Youve chosen to thry to hould me on ut. I will not be held thereby for anythin in the world. Is that enough?
Judy wint pink all over. An I wish you joy av the perjury, sez she, duckin a curtsey. Youve lost a woman that would ha wore her hand to the bone for your pleasure; an deed, Terence, ye were not thrapped. Lascelles must ha spoken plain to her. I am such as Dinah isdeed I am! Yeve lost a fool av a girl thatll niver look at you again, an yeve lost what ye niver had,your common honesty. If you manage your men as you manage your love-makin, small wondher they call you the worst corpril in the compny. Come away, mother, sez she.
But divil a fut would the ould woman budge! Dyou hould by that? sez she, peerin up under her thick gray eyebrows.
Ay, an wud, sez I, tho Dinah gave me the go twinty times. Ill have no thruck with you or yours, sez I. Take your child away, ye shameless woman.
An am I shameless? sez she, bringin her hands up above her head. Thin what are you, ye lyin, schamin, weak-kneed, dhirty-souled son av a sutler? Am I shameless? Who put the open shame on me an my child that we shud go beggin through the lines in the broad daylight for the broken word of a man? Double portion of my shame be on you, Terence Mulvaney, that think yourself so strong! By Mary and the saints, by blood and water an by ivry sorrow that came into the world since the beginnin, the black blight fall on you and yours, so that you may niver be free from pain for another when uts not your own! May your heart bleed in your breast drop by drop wid all your friends laughin at the bleedin! Strong you think yourself? May your strength be a curse to you to dhrive you into the divils hands against your own will! Clear-eyed you are? May your eyes see clear evry step av the dark path you take till the hot cindhers av hell put thim out! May the ragin dry thirst in my own ould bones go to you that you shall niver pass bottle full nor glass empty. God preserve the light av your onderstandin to you, my jewel av a bhoy, that ye may niver forget what you mint to be an do, whin youre wallowin in the muck! May ye see the betther and follow the worse as long as theres breath in your body; an may ye die quick in a strange land, watchin your death before ut takes you, an onable to stir hand or foot!
I heard a scufflin in the room behind, and thin Dinah Shadds hand dhropped into mine like a rose-leaf into a muddy road.
The half av that Ill take, sez she, an more too if I can. Go home, ye silly talkin woman,go home an confess.
Come away! Come away! sez Judy, pullin her mother by the shawl. Twas none av Terences fault. For the love av Mary stop the talkin!
An you! said ould Mother Sheehy, spinnin round forninst Dinah. Will ye take the half av that mans load? Stand off from him, Dinah Shadd, before he takes you down tooyou that look to be a quarther-master-sergeants wife in five years. You look too high, child. You shall wash for the quarther-master-sergeant, whin he plases to give you the job out av charity; but a privits wife you shall be to the end, an evry sorrow of a privits wife you shall know and niver a joy but wan, that shall go from you like the running tide from a rock. The pain av bearin you shall know but niver the pleasure av giving the breast; an you shall put away a man-child into the common ground wid niver a priest to say a prayer over him, an on that man-child ye shall think ivry day av your life. Think long, Dinah Shadd, for youll niver have another tho you pray till your knees are bleedin. The mothers av childer shall mock you behind your back when youre wringing over the wash-tub. You shall know what ut is to help a dhrunken husband home an see him go to the gyard-room. Will that plase you, Dinah Shadd, that wont be seen talkin to my daughter? You shall talk to worse than Judy before alls over. The sergints wives shall look down on you contemptuous, daughter av a sergint, an you shall cover ut all up wid a smiling face whin your hearts burstin. Stand off av him, Dinah Shadd, for Ive put the Black Curse of Shielygh upon him an his own mouth shall make ut good.
She pitched forward on her head an began foamin at the mouth. Dinah Shadd ran out wid water, an Judy dhragged the ould woman into the verandah till she sat up.
Im old an forlore, she sez, thremblin an cryin, and tis like I say a dale more than I mane.
When youre able to walk,go, says ould Mother Shadd. This house has no place for the likes av you that have cursed my daughter.
Eyah! said the ould woman. Hard words break no bones, an Dinah Shadd ll kape the love av her husband till my bones are green corn. Judy darlin, I misremember what I came here for. Can you lend us the bottom av a taycup av tay, Mrs. Shadd?
But Judy dhragged her off cryin as tho her heart wud break. An Dinah Shadd an I, in ten minutes we had forgot ut all.
Then why do you remember it now? said I.
Is ut like Id forget? Ivry word that wicked ould woman spoke fell thrue in my life aftherwards, an I cud ha stud ut allstud ut all,excipt when my little Shadd was born. That was on the line av march three months afther the regiment was taken with cholera. We were betune Umballa an Kalka thin, an I was on picket. Whin I came off duty the women showed me the child, an ut turned on uts side an died as I looked. We buried him by the road, an Father Victor was a days march behind wid the heavy baggage, so the compny captain read a prayer. An since then Ive been a childless man, an all else that ould Mother Sheehy put upon me an Dinah Shadd. What do you think, sorr?
I thought a good deal, but it seemed better then to reach out for Mulvaneys hand. The demonstration nearly cost me the use of three fingers. Whatever he knows of his weaknesses, Mulvaney is entirely ignorant of his strength.
But what do you think? he repeated, as I was straightening out the crushed fingers.
My reply was drowned in yells and outcries from the next fire, where ten men were shouting for Orthris, Privit Orthris, Mistah Ortherris! Deah boy, Capn Orthris, Field-Marshal Orthris, Stanley, you pennorth o pop, come ere to your own compny! And the cockney, who had been delighting another audience with recondite and Rabelaisian yarns, was shot down among his admirers by the major force.
Youve crumpled my dress-shirt orrid, said he, an I shant sing no more to this ere bloomin drawin-room.
Learoyd, roused by the confusion, uncoiled himself, crept behind Ortheris, and slung him aloft on his shoulders.
Sing, ye bloomin hummin bird! said he, and Ortheris, beating time on Learoyds skull, delivered himself, in the raucous voice of the Ratcliffe Highway, of this song:
My girl she give me the go onst, When I was a London lad, An I went on the drink for a fortnight, An then I went to the bad. The Queen she give me a shillin To fight for er over the seas; But Guvment built me a fever-trap, An Injia give me disease.
Chorus.
I fired a shot at a Afghan,
Chorus.
I served my time for a corpral,
Chorus.
Ive tasted the luck o the army
Chorus. |
Ay, listen to our little man now, singin an shoutin as tho trouble had niver touched him. D you remember when he went mad with the home-sickness? said Mulvaney, recalling a never-to-be-forgotten season when Ortheris waded through the deep waters if affliction and behaved abominably. But hes talkin bitter truth, though. Eyah!
My very worst frind from beginnin to ind By the blood av a mouse was mesilf! |
When I woke I saw Mulvaney, the night-dew gemming his moustache, leaning on his rifle at picket, lonely as Prometheus on his rock, with I know not what vultures tearing his liver.
The deserter from a native corps was crawling round the outskirts of the camp, firing at intervals, and shouting invitations to his old comrades. Misled by the rain and the darkness, he came to the English wing of the camp, and with his yelping and rifle-practice disturbed the men. They had been making roads all day, and were tired.
Ortheris was sleeping at Learoyds feet. Wots all that? he said thickly. Learoyd snored, and a Snider bullet ripped its way through the tent wall. The men swore. Its that bloomin deserter from the Aurangabadis, said Ortheris. Git up, some one, an tell im es come to the wrong shop.
Go to sleep, little man, said Mulvaney, who was steaming nearest the door. I cant arise an expaytiate with him. Tis rainin entrenchin tools outside.
Taint because you bloomin cant. Its cause you bloomin wont, ye long, limp, lousy, lazy beggar, you. Ark to im owlin!
Wots the good of argifying? Put a bullet into the swine! Es keepin us awake! said another voice.
A subaltern shouted angrily, and a dripping sentry whined from the darkness
Taint no good, sir. I cant see im. Es idin somewhere down ill.
Ortheris tumbled out of his blanket. Shall I try to get im, sir? said he.
No, was the answer. Lie down. I wont have the whole camp shooting all round the clock. Tell him to go and pot his friends.
Ortheris considered for a moment. Then, putting his head under the tent wall, he called, as a bus conductor calls in a block, Igher up, there! Igher up!
The men laughed, and the laughter was carried down wind to the deserter, who, hearing that he had made a mistake, went off to worry his own regiment half a mile away. He was received with shots; the Aurangabadis were very angry with him for disgracing their colours.
An thats all right, said Ortheris, withdrawing his head as he heard the hiccough of the Sniders in the distance. Selp me Gawd, tho, that mans not fit to livemessin with my beauty-sleep this way.
Go out and shoot him in the morning, then, said the subaltern incautiously. Silence in the tents now. Get your rest, men.
Ortheris lay down with a happy little sigh, and in two minutes there was no sound except the rain on the canvas and the all-embracing and elemental snoring of Learoyd.
The camp lay on a bare ridge of the Himalayas, and for a week had been waiting for a flying column to make connection. The nightly rounds of the deserter and his friends had become a nuisance.
In the morning the men dried themselves in hot sunshine and cleaned their grimy accoutrements. The native regiment was to take its turn of road-making that day while the Old Regiment loafed.
Im goin to lay for a shot at that man, said Ortheris, when he had finished washing out his rifle. E comes up the watercourse every evenin about five oclock. If we go and lie out on the north ill a bit this afternoon well get im.
Youre a bloodthirsty little mosquito, said Mulvaney, blowing blue clouds into the air. But I suppose I will have to come wid you. Fwheres Jock?
Gone out with the Mixed Pickles, cause e thinks isself a bloomin marksman, said Ortheris with scorn.
The Mixed Pickles were a detachment of picked shots, generally employed in clearing spurs of hills when the enemy were too impertinent. This taught the young officers how to handle men, and did not do the enemy much harm. Mulvaney and Ortheris strolled out of camp, and passed the Aurangabadis going to their road-making.
Youve got to sweat to-day, said Ortheris genially. Were going to get your man. You didnt knock im out last night by any chance, any of you?
No. The pig went away mocking us. I had one shot at him, said a private. Hes my cousin, and I ought to have cleared our dishonour. But good luck to you.
They went cautiously to the north hill, Ortheris leading, because, as he explained, this is a long-range show, an Ive got to do it. His was an almost passionate devotion to his rifle, whom, by barrack-room report, he was supposed to kiss every night before turning in. Charges and scuffles he held in contempt, and, when they were inevitable, slipped between Mulvaney and Learoyd, bidding them to fight for his skin as well as their own. They never failed him. He trotted along, questing like a hound on a broken trail, through the wood of the north hill. At last he was satisfied, and threw himself down on the soft pine-needled slope that commanded a clear view of the watercourse and a brown, bare hillside beyond it. The trees made a scented darkness in which an army corps could have hidden from the sun-glare without.
Eres the tail o the wood, said Ortheris. Es got to come up the watercourse, cause it gives im cover. Well lay ere. Taint not arf so bloomin dusty neither.
He buried his nose in a clump of scentless white violets. No one had come to tell the flowers that the season of their strength was long past, and they had bloomed merrily in the twilight of the pines.
This is something like, he said luxuriously. Wot a evinly clear drop for a bullet acrost. How much dyou make it, Mulvaney?
Seven hunder. Maybe a trifle less, bekaze the airs so thin.
Wop! wop! wop! went a volley of musketry on the rear face of the north hill.
Curse them Mixed Pickles firin at nothin! Theyll scare arf the country.
Thry a sightin shot in the middle of the row, said Mulvaney, the man of many wiles. Theres a red rock yonder hell be sure to pass. Quick!
Ortheris ran his sight up to six hundred yards and fired. The bullet threw up a feather of dust by a clump of gentians at the base of the rock.
Good enough! said Ortheris, snapping the scale down. You snick your sights to mine or a little lower. Youre always firin high. But remember, first shot to me. O Lordy! but its a lovely afternoon.
The noise of the firing grew louder, and there was a tramping of men in the wood. The two lay very quiet, for they knew that the British soldier is desperately prone to fire at anything that moves or calls.
Then Learoyd appeared, his tunic ripped across the breast by a bullet, looking ashamed of himself. He flung down on the pine-needles, breathing in snorts.
One o them damned gardeners o th Pickles, said he, fingering the rent. Firin to th right flank, when he knowed I was there. If I knew who he was Id a rippen the hide offan him. Look at ma tunic!
Thats the spishil trustability av a marksman. Train him to hit a fly wid a stiddy rest at seven hunder, an he loose on anythin he sees or hears up to th mile. Youre well out av that fancy-firin gang, Jock. Stay here.
Bin firin at the bloomin wind in the bloomin treetops, said Ortheris with a chuckle. Ill show you some firin later on.
They wallowed in the pine-needles, and the sun warmed them where they lay. The Mixed Pickles ceased firing, and returned to camp, and left the wood to a few scared apes. The watercourse lifted up its voice in the silence, and talked foolishly to the rocks. Now and again the dull thump of a blasting charge three miles away told that the Aurangabadis were in difficulties with their road-making. The men smiled as they listened and lay still, soaking in the warm leisure. Presently Learoyd, between the whiffs of his pipe
Seems queerabout im yonderdesertin at all.
Ell be a bloomin side queerer when Ive done with im, said Ortheris. They were talking in whispers, for the stillness of the wood and the desire of slaughter lay heavy upon them.
I make no doubt he had his reasons for desertin; but, my faith! I make less doubt ivry man has good reason for killin him, said Mulvaney.
Happen there was a lass tewed up wi it. Men do more than more for th sake of a lass.
They make most av us list. Theyve no manner av right to make us desert.
Ah; they make us list, or their fathers do, said Learoyd softly, his helmet over his eyes.
Ortheriss brows contracted savagely. He was watching the valley. If its a girl Ill shoot the beggar twice over, an second time for bein a fool. Youre blasted sentimental all of a sudden. Thinkin o your last near shave?
Nay, lad; ah was but thinkin o what has happened.
An fwhat has happened, ye lumberin child av calamity, that youre lowing like a cow-calf at the back av the pasture, an suggestin invidious excuses for the man Stanleys goin to kill. Yell have to wait another hour yet, little man. Spit it out, Jock, an bellow melojus to the moon. It takes an earthquake or a bullet graze to fetch aught out av you. Discourse, Don Juan! The a-moors av Lotharius Learoyd! Stanley, kape a rowlin rigmental eye on the valley.
Its along o yon hill there, said Learoyd, watching the bare sub-Himalayan spur that reminded him of his Yorkshire moors. He was speaking more to himself than his fellows. Ay, said he, Rumbolds Moor stands up ower Skipton town, an Greenhow Hill stands up ower Pately Brig. I reckon youve never heeard tell o Greenhow Hill, but yon bit o bare stuff if there was nobbut a white road windin is like ut; strangely like. Moors an moors an moors, wi never a tree for shelter, an gray houses wi flagstone rooves, and pewits cryin, an a windhover goin to and fro just like these kites. And cold! A wind that cuts you like a knife. You could tell Greenhow Hill folk by the red-apple colour o their cheeks an nose tips, and their blue eyes, driven into pin-points by the wind. Miners mostly, burrowin for lead i th hillsides, followin the trail of th ore vein same as a field-rat. It was the roughest minin I ever seen. Yod come on a bit o creakin wood windlass like a well-head, an you was let down i th bight of a rope, fendin yoursen off the side wi one hand, carryin a candle stuck in a lump o clay with tother, an clickin hold of a rope with tother hand.
An thats three of them, said Mulvaney. Must be a good climate in those parts.
Learoyd took no heed.
An then yo came to a level, where you crept on your hands and knees through a mile o windin drift, an you come out into a cave-place as big as Leeds Townhall, with a engine pumpin water from workins at went deeper still. Its a queer country, let alone minin, for the hill is full of those natural caves, an the rivers an the becks drops into what they call pot-holes, an come out again miles away.
Wot was you doin there? said Ortheris.
I was a young chap then, an mostly went wi osses, leadin coal and lead ore; but at th time Im tellin on I was drivin the waggon-team i th big sumph. I didnt belong to that country-side by rights. I went there because of a little difference at home, an at fust I took up wi a rough lot. One night wed been drinkin, an I must ha hed more than I could stand, or happen th ale was none so good. Though i them days, By for God, I never seed bad ale. He flung his arms over his head, and gripped a vast handful of white violets. Nah, said he, I never seed the ale I could not drink, the bacca I could not smoke, nor the lass I could not kiss. Well, we mun have a race home, the lot on us. I lost all th others, an when I was climbin ower one of them walls built o loose stones, I comes down into the ditch, stones and all, an broke my arm. Not as I knawed much about it, for I fell on th back of my head, an was knocked stupid like. An when I come to mysen it were mornin, an I were lyin on the settle i Jesse Roantrees house-place, an Liza Roantree was settin sewin. I ached all ovver, and my mouth were like a lime-kiln. She gave me a drink out of a china mug wi gold lettersA Present from Leedsas I looked at many and many a time at after. Yore to lie still while Dr. Warbottom comes, because your arms broken, and father has sent a lad to fetch him. He found yo when he was goin to work, an carried you here on his back, sez she. Oa! sez I; an I shet my eyes, for I felt ashamed o mysen. Fathers gone to his work these three hours, an he said hed tell em to get somebody to drive the tram. The clock ticked, an a bee comed in the house, an they rung i my head like mill-wheels. An she give me another drink an settled the pillow. Eh, but yore young to be getten drunk an such like, but yo wont do it again, will yo?Noa, sez I, I wouldnt if shed not but stop they mill-wheels clatterin.
Faith, its a good thing to be nursed by a woman when youre sick! said Mulvaney. Dir cheap at the price av twenty broken heads.
Ortheris turned to frown across the valley. He had not been nursed by many women in his life.
An then Dr. Warbottom comes ridin up, an Jesse Roantree along with im. He was a highlarned doctor, but he talked wi poor folk same as theirsens. Whats ta bin agaate on naa? he sings out. Brekkin tha thick head? An he felt me all ovver. Thats none broken. Tha nobbut knocked a bit sillier than ordinary, an thats daaft eneaf. An soa he went on, callin me all the names he could think on, but settin my arm, wi Jesses help, as careful as could be. Yo mun let the big oaf bide here a bit, Jesse, he says, when he hed strapped me up an given me a dose o physic; an you an Liza will tend him, though hes scarcelins worth the trouble. An thall lose tha work, sez he, an thall be upon th Sick Club for a couple o months an more. Doesnt tha think thas a fool?
But whin was a young man, high or low, the other av a fool, Id like to know? said Mulvaney. Sure, follys the only safe way to wisdom, for Ive thried it.
Wisdom! grinned Ortheris, scanning his comrades with uplifted chin. Youre bloomin Solomons, you two, aint you?
Learoyd went calmly on, with a steady eye like an ox chewing the cud.
And that was how I comed to know Liza Roantree. Theres some tunes as she used to singaw, she were always singinthat fetches Greenhow Hill before my eyes as fair as you brow across there. And she would learn me to sing bass, an I was to go to th chapel wi em, where Jesse and she led the singin, th old man playin the fiddle. He was a strange chap, old Jesse, fair mad wi music, an he made me promise to learn the big fiddle when my arm was better. It belonged to him, and it stood up in a big case alongside o th eight-day clock, but Willie Satterthwaite, as played it in the chapel, had getten deaf as a door-post, and it vexed Jesse, as he had to rap him ower his head wi th fiddle-stick to make him give ower sawin at th right time.
But there was a black drop in it all, an it was a man in a black coat that brought it. When th Primitive Methodist preacher came to Greenhow, he would always stop wi Jesse Roantree, an he laid hold of me from th beginning. It seemed I wor a soul to be saved, and he meaned to do it. At th same time I jealoused at he were keen o savin Liza Roantrees soul as well, and I could ha killed him many a time. An this went on till one day I broke out, an borrowed th brass for a drink from Liza. After fower days I come back, wi my tail between my legs, just to see Liza again. But Jesse were at home an th preacherth Reverend Amos Barraclough. Liza said naught, but a bit o red come into her face as were white of a regular thing. Says Jesse, tryin his best to be civil, Nay, lad, its like this. Youve getten to choose which way its goin to be. Ill ha nobody across ma doorstep as goes a-drinkin, an borrows my lasss money to spend i their drink. Hod tha tongue, Liza, sez he, when she wanted to put in a word at I were welcome to th brass, and she were none afraid that I wouldnt pay it back. Then the Reverend cuts in, seein as Jesse were losin his temper, an they fair beat me among them. But it were Liza, as looked an said naught, as did more than either o their tongues, an soa I concluded to get converted.
Fwhat! shouted Mulvaney. Then, checking himself, he said softly, Let be! Let be! Sure the Blessed Virgin is the mother of all religion an most women; an theres a dale av piety in a girl if the men would only let ut stay there. Id ha been converted myself under the circumstances.
Nay, but, pursued Learoyd with a blush, I meaned it.
Ortheris laughed as loudly as he dared, having regard to his business at the time.
Ay, Ortheris, you may laugh, but you didnt know you preacher Barraclougha little white-faced chap, wi a voice as ud wile a bird off an a bush, and a way o layin hold of folks as made them think theyd never had a live man for a friend before. You never saw him, ananyou never seed Liza Roantreenever seed Liza Roantree.…Happen it was as much Liza as th preacher and her father, but anyways they all meaned it, an I was fair shamed o mysen, an so I become what they called a changed charácter. And when I think on, its hard to believe as yon chap going to prayer-meetins, chapel, and class-meetins were me. But I never had naught to say for mysen, though there was a deal o shoutin, and old Sammy Strother, as were almost clemmed to death and doubled up with the rheumatics, would sing out, Joyful! Joyful! and at it were better to go up to heaven in a coal-basket than down to hell i a coach an six. And he would put his poor old claw on my shoulder, sayin, Doesnt tha feel it, tha great lump? Doesnt tha feel it? An sometimes I thought I did, and then again I thought I didnt, an how was that?
The iverlastin nature av mankind, said Mulvaney. An, furthermore, I misdoubt you were built for the Primitive Methodians. Theyre a new corps anyways. I hold by the Ould Church, for shes the mother of them allay, an the father, too. I like her bekaze shes most remarkable regimental in her fittings. I may die in Honolulu, Nova Zambra, or Cape Cayenne, but wherever I die, me bein fwhat I am, an a priest handy, I go under the same orders an the same words an the same unction as tho the Pope himself come down from the roof av St. Peters to see me off. Theres neither high nor low, nor broad nor deep, nor betwixt nor between wid her, an thats what I like. But mark you, shes no manner av Church for a wake man, bekaze she takes the body and the soul av him, onless he has his proper work to do. I remember when my father died that was three months comin to his grave; begad hed ha sold the shebeen above our heads for ten minutes quittance of purgathory. An he did all he could. Thats why I say ut takes a strong man to deal with the Ould Church, an for that reason youll find so many women go there. An that sames a conundrum.
Wots the use o worrittin bout these things? said Ortheris. Youre bound to find all out quicker nor you want to, anyow. He jerked the cartridge out of the breech-block into the palm of his hand. Eres my chaplain, he said, and made the venomous black-headed bullet bow like a marionette. Es goin to teach a man all about which is which, an wots true, after all, before sundown. But wot appened after that, Jock?
There was one thing they boggled at, and almost shut th gate i my face for, and that were my dog Blast, th only one saved out o a litter o pups as was blowed up when a keg o minin powder loosed off in th store-keepers hut. They liked his name no better than his business, which were fightin every dog he comed across; a rare good dog, wi spots o black and pink on his face, one ear gone, and lame o one side wi being driven in a basket through an iron roof, a matter of half a mile.
They said I mun give him up cause he were worldly and low; and would I let mysen be shut out of heaven for the sake on a dog? Nay, says I, if th door isnt wide enough for th pair on us, well stop outside, for well none be parted. And th preacher spoke up for Blast, as had a likin for him from th firstI reckon that was why I come to like th preacherand wouldnt hear o changin his name to Bless, as some o them wanted. So th pair on us became reglar chapel-members. But its hard for a young chap o my build to cut traces from the world, th flesh, an the devil all uv a heap. Yet I stuck to it for a long time, while th lads as used to stand about th town-end an lean ower th bridge, spittin into th beck o a Sunday, would call after me, Sitha, Learoyd, whens ta bean to preach, cause were comin to hear tha.Hod tha jaw. He hasnt getten th white choaker on ta morn, another lad would say, and I had to double my fists hard i th bottom of my Sunday coat, and say to mysen, If twere Monday and I warnt a member o the Primitive Methodists, Id leather all th lot of yond. That was th hardest of allto know that I could fight and I mustnt fight.
Sympathetic grunts from Mulvaney.
So what wi singin, practisin, and classmeetins, and th big fiddle, as he made me take between my knees, I spent a deal o time i Jesse Roantrees house-place. But often as I was there, th preacher fared to me to go oftener, and both th old man an th young woman were pleased to have him. He lived i Pately Brig, as were a goodish step off, but he come. He come all the same. I liked him as well or better as any man Id ever seen i one way, and yet I hated him wi all my heart i tother, and we watched each other like cat and mouse, but civil as you please, for I was on my best behaviour, and he was that fair and open that I was bound to be fair with him. Rare good company he was, if I hadnt wanted to wring his cliver little neck half of the time. Often and often when he was goin from Jesses Id set him a bit on the road.
See im ome, you mean? said Ortheris.
Ay. Its a way we have i Yorkshire o seein friends off. Yon was a friend as I didnt want to come back, and he didnt want me to come back neither, and so wed walk together towards Pately, and then hed set me back again, and there wed be wal two oclock i the mornin settin each other to an fro like a blasted pair o pendulums twixt hill and valley, long after th light had gone out i Lizas window, as both on us had been looking at, pretending to watch the moon.
Ah! broke in Mulvaney, yed no chanst against the maraudin psalm-singer. Theyll take the airs an the graces instid av the man nine times out av ten, an they only find the blunder laterthe wimmen.
Thats just where yore wrong, said Learoyd, reddening under the freckled tan of his cheeks. I was th first wi Liza, an yod think that were enough. But th parson were a steady-gaited sort o chap, and Jesse were strong o his side, and all th women i the congregation dinned it to Liza at she were fair fond to take up wi a wastrel neer-do-weel like me, as was scarcelins respectable an a fighting dog at his heels. It was all very well for her to be doing me good and saving my soul, but she must mind as she didnt do herself harm. They talk o rich folk bein stuck up an genteel, but for cast-iron pride o respectability theres naught like poor chapel folk. Its as cold as th wind o Greenhow Hillay, and colder, for twill never change. And now I come to think on it, one at strangest things I know is at they couldnt abide th thought o soldiering. Theres a vast o fightin i th Bible, and theres a deal of Methodists i th army; but to hear chapel folk talk yod think that soldierin were next door, an tother side, to hangin. I their meetins all their talk is o fightin. When Sammy Strother were stuck for summat to say in his prayers, hed sing out, Th sword o th Lord and o Gideon. They were allus at it about puttin on th whole armour o righteousness, an fightin the good fight o faith. And then, atop o t all, they held a prayer-meetin ower a young chap as wanted to list, and nearly deafened him, till he picked up his hat and fair ran away. And theyd tell tales in th Sunday-school o bad lads as had been thumped and brayed for bird-nesting o Sundays and playin truant o week-days, and how they took to wrestlin, dog-fightin, rabbit-runnin, and drinkin, till at last, as if twere a hepitaph on a gravestone, they damned him across th moors wi, an then he went and listed for a soldier, an theyd all fetch a deep breath, and throw up their eyes like a hen drinkin.
Fwhy is ut? said Mulvaney, bringing down his hand on his thigh with a crack. In the name av God, fwhy is ut? Ive seen ut, tu. They cheat an they swindle an they lie an they slander, an fifty things fifty times worse; but the last an the worst by their reckonin is to serve the Widdy honest. Its like the talk av childerseein things all round.
Plucky lot of fightin good fights of whatsername theyd do if we didnt see they had a quiet place to fight in. And such fightin as theirs is! Cats on the tiles. Tother callin to which to come on. Id give a months pay to get some o them broad-backed beggars in London sweatin through a days road-makin an a nights rain. Theyd carry on a deal afterwardssame as were supposed to carry on. Ive bin turned out of a measly arf-license pub down Lambeth way, full o greasy kebmen, fore now, said Ortheris with an oath.
Maybe you were dhrunk, said Mulvaney soothingly.
Worse nor that. The Forders were drunk. I was wearin the Queens uniform.
Id no particular thought to be a soldier i them days, said Learoyd, still keeping his eye on the bare hill opposite, but this sort o talk put it i my head. They was so good, th chapel folk, that they tumbled ower tother side. But I stuck to it for Lizas sake, specially as she was learning me to sing the bass part in a horotorio as Jesse were gettin up. She sung like a throstle hersen, and we had practisins night after night for a matter of three months.
I know what a horotorio is, said Ortheris pertly. Its a sort of chaplains sing-songwords all out of the Bible, and hullabaloojah choruses.
Most Greenhow Hill folks played some instrument or tother, an they all sung so you might have heard them miles away, and they were so pleased wi the noise they made they didnt fair to want anybody to listen. The preacher sung high seconds when he wasnt playin the flute, an they set me, as hadnt got far with big fiddle, again Willie Satterthwaite, to jog his elbow when he had to get a gate playin. Old Jesse was happy if ever a man was, for he were th conductor an th first fiddle an th leadin singer, beatin time wi his fiddle-stick, till at times hed rap with it on the table, and cry out, Now, you mun all stop; its my turn. And hed face round to his front, fair sweating wi pride, to sing th tenor solos. But he were grandest i th choruses, waggin his head, flinging his arms round like a windmill, and singin hisself black in the face. A rare singer were Jesse.
Yo see, I was not o much account wi em all exceptin to Liza Roantree, and I had a deal o time settin quiet at meetings and horotorio practises to hearken their talk, and if it were strange to me at beginnin, it got stranger still at after, when I was shut on it, and could study what it meaned.
Just after th horotorios came off, Liza, as had allus been weakly like, was took very bad. I walked Dr. Warbottoms horse up and down a deal of times while he were inside, where they wouldnt let me go, though I fair ached to see her.
Shell be better i noo, ladbetter i noo, he used to say. That mun ha patience. Then they said if I was quiet I might go in, and th Reverend Amos Barraclough used to read to her lyin propped up among th pillows. Then she began to mend a bit, and they let me carry her on to th settle, and when it got warm again she went about same as afore. Th preacher and me and Blast was a deal together i them days, and i one way we was rare good comrades. But I could ha stretched him time and again with a good will. I mind one day he said he would like to go down into th bowels o th earth, and see how th Lord had builded th framework o th everlastin hills. He were one of them chaps as had a gift o sayin things. They rolled off the tip of his clever tongue, same as Mulvaney here, as would ha made a rare good preacher if he had nobbut given his mind to it. I lent him a suit o miners kit as almost buried th little man, and his white face down i th coat-collar and hat-flap looked like the face of a boggart, and he cowered down i th bottom o the waggon. I was drivin a tram as led up a bit of an incline up to th cave where the engine was pumpin, and where th ore was brought up and put into th waggons as went down o themselves, me puttin th brake on and th horses a-trottin after. Long as it was daylight we were good friends, but when we got fair into th dark, and could nobbut see th day shinin at the hole like a lamp at a street-end, I feeled down-right wicked. Ma religion dropped all away from me when I looked back at him as were always comin between me and Liza. The talk was at they were to be wed when she got better, an I couldnt get her to say yes or nay to it. He began to sing a hymn in his thin voice, and I came out wi a chorus that was all cussin an swearin at my horses, an I began to know how I hated him. He were such a little chap, too. I could drop him wi one hand down Garstangs Copper-holea place where th beck slithered ower th edge on a rock, and fell wi a bit of a whisper into a pit as no rope i Greenhow could plump.
Again Learoyd rooted up the innocent violets. Ay, he should see th bowels o th earth an never naught else. I could take him a mile or two along th drift, and leave him wi his candle doused to cry hallelujah, wi none to hear him and say amen. I was to lead him down th ladder-way to th drift where Jesse Roantree was workin, and why shouldnt he slip on th ladder, wi my feet on his fingers till they loosed grip, and I put him down wi my heel? If I went fust down th ladder I could click hold on him and chuck him over my head, so as he should go squshin down the shaft, breakin his bones at evry timberin as Bill Appleton did when he was fresh, and hadnt a bone left when he wrought to th bottom. Niver a blasted leg to walk from Pately. Niver an arm to put round Liza Roantrees waist. Niver no moreniver no more.
The thick lips curled back over the yellow teeth, and that flushed face was not pretty to look upon. Mulvaney nodded sympathy, and Ortheris, moved by his comrades passion, brought up the rifle to his shoulder, and searched the hillside for his quarry, muttering ribaldry about a sparrow, a spout, and a thunder-storm. The voice of the watercourse supplied the necessary small talk till Learoyd picked up his story.
But its none so easy to kill a man like yon. When Id given up my horses to th lad as took my place and I was showin th preacher th workins, shoutin into his ear across th clang o th pumpin engines, I saw he were afraid o naught; and when the lamplight showed his black eyes, I could feel as he was masterin me again. I were no better nor Blast chained up short and growlin i the depths of him while a strange dog went safe past.
Th art a coward and a fool, I said to mysen; an I wrestled i my mind again him till, when we come to Garstangs Copper-hole, I laid hold o the preacher and lifted him up over my head and held him into the darkest on it. Now, lad, I says, its to be one or tother on usthee or mefor Liza Roantree. Why, isnt thee afraid for thysen? I says, for he were still i my arms as a sack. Nay; Im but afraid for thee, my poor lad, as knows naught, says he. I set him down on th edge, an th beck run stiller, an there was no more buzzin in my head like when th bee come through th window o Jesses house. What dost tha mean? says I.
Ive often thought as thou ought to know, says he, but twas hard to tell thee. Liza Roantrees for neither on us, nor for nobody o this earth. Dr. Warbottom saysand he knows her, and her mother before herthat she is in a decline, and she cannot live six months longer. Hes known it for many a day. Steady, John! Steady! says he. And that weak little man pulled me further back and set me again him, and talked it all over quiet and still, me turnin a bunch o candles in my hand, and counting them ower and ower again as I listened. A deal on it were th regular preachin talk, but there were a vast lot as made me begin to think as he were more of a man than Id ever given him credit for, till I were cut as deep for him as I were for mysen.
Six candles we had, and we crawled and climbed all that day while they lasted, and I said to mysen, Liza Roantree hasnt six months to live. And when we came into th daylight again we were liked dead men to look at, an Blast come behind us without so much as waggin his tail. When I saw Liza again she looked at me a minute and says, Whos telled tha? For I see that knows. And she tried to smile as she kissed me, and I fair broke down.
Yosee, I was a young chap i them days, and had seen naught o life, let alone death, as is allus a-waitin. She telled me as Dr. Warbottom said as Greenhow air was too keen, and they were goin to Bradford, to Jesses brother David, as worked i a mill, and I mun hold up like a man and a Christian, and shed pray for me. Well, and they went away, and the preacher that same back end o th year were appointed to another circuit, as they call it, and I were left alone on Greenhow Hill.
I tried, and I tried hard, to stick to th chapel, but twerent th same thing at after. I hadnt Lizas voice to follow i th singin, nor her eyes ashinin acrost their heads. And i th class-meetings they said as I mun have some experiences to tell, and I hadnt a word to say for mysen.
Blast and me moped a good deal, and happen we didnt behave ourselves over well, for they dropped us and wondered however theyd come to take us up. I cant tell how we got through th time, while i th winter I gave up my job and went to Bradford. Old Jesse were at th door o th house, in a long street o little houses. Hed been sendin th children way as were clatterin their clogs in th causeway, for she were asleep.
Is it thee? he says; but youre not to see her. Ill none have her wakened for a nowt like thee. Shes goin fast, and she mun go in peace. Thoult never be good for naught i th world, and as long as thou lives thoull never play the big fiddle. Get away, lad, get away! So he shut the door softly i my face.
Nobody never made Jesse my master, but it seemed to me he was about right, and I went away into the town and knocked up against a recruiting sergeant. The old tales o th chapel folk came buzzin into my head. I was to get away, and this were th regular road for the likes o me. I listed there and then, took th Widows shillin, and had a bunch o ribbons pinned i my hat.
But next day I found my way to David Roantrees door, and Jesse came to open it. Says he, Thous come back again wi th devils colours flyinthy true colours, as I always telled thee.
But I begged and prayed of him to let me see her nobbut to say good-bye, till a woman calls down th stair-way, She says John Learoyds to come up. Th old man shifts aside in a flash, and lays his hand on my arm, quite gentle like. But thoult be quiet, John, says he, for shes rare and weak. Thou was allus a good lad.
Her eyes were all alive wi light, and her hair was thick on the pillow round her, but her cheeks were thinthin to frighten a man thats strong. Nay, father, yo maynt say th devils colours. Them ribbons is pretty. An she held out her hands for th hat, an she put all straight as a woman will wi ribbons. Nay, but what theyre pretty, she says. Eh, but Id ha liked to see thee i thy red coat, John, for thou was allus my own ladmy very own lad, and none else.
She lifted up her arms, and they come round my neck i a gentle grip, and they slacked away, and she seemed fainting. Now yo mun get away, lad, says Jesse, and I picked up my hat and I came downstairs.
Th recruiting sergeant were waitin for me at th corner public-house. Yove seen your sweetheart? says he. Yes, Ive seen her, says I. Well, well have a quart now, and youll do your best to forget her, says he, bein one o them smart, bustlin chaps. Ay, sergeant, says I. Forget her. And Ive been forgettin her ever since.
He threw away the wilted clump of white violets as he spoke. Ortheris suddenly rose to his knees, his rifle at his shoulder, and peered across the valley in the clear afternoon light. His chin cuddled the stock, and there was a twitching of the muscles of the right cheek as he sighted; Private Stanley Ortheris was engaged on his business. A speck of white crawled up the watercourse.
See that beggar? Got im.
Seven hundred yards away, and a full two hundred down the hillside, the deserter of the Aurangabadis pitched forward, rolled down a red rock, and lay very still, with his face in a clump of blue gentians, while a big raven flapped out of the pine wood to make investigation.
Thats a clean shot, little man, said Mulvaney.
Learoyd thoughtfully watched the smoke clear away. Happen there was a lass tewed up wi him, too, said he.
Ortheris did not reply. He was staring across the valley, with the smile of the artist who looks on the completed work.
Dirkovitch was a Russiana Russian of the Russianswho appeared to get his bread by serving the Czar as an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice alike. He was a handsome young Oriental, fond of wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least no living man could ascertain whether it was by way of Balkh, Badakshan, Chitral, Beluchistan, or Nepaul, or anywhere else. The Indian Government, being in an unusually affable mood, gave orders that he was to be civilly treated and shown everything that was to be seen. So he drifted, talking bad English and worse French, from one city to another, till he foregathered with Her Majestys White Hussars in the city of Peshawur, which stands at the mouth of that narrow swordcut in the hills that men call the Khyber Pass. He was undoubtedly an officer, and he was decorated after the manner of the Russians with little enamelled crosses, and he could talk, and (though this has nothing to do with his merits) he had been given up as a hopeless task, or cask, by the Black Tyrone, who individually and collectively, with hot whiskey and honey, mulled brandy, and mixed spirits of every kind, had striven in all hospitality to make him drunk. And when the Black Tyrone, who are exclusively Irish, fail to disturb the peace of head of a foreignerthat foreigner is certain to be a superior man.
The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing their wine as in charging the enemy. All that they possessed, including some wondrous brandy, was placed at the absolute disposition of Dirkovitch, and he enjoyed himself hugelyeven more than among the Black Tyrones.
But he remained distressingly European through it all. The White Hussars were My dear true friends, Fellow-soldiers glorious, and Brothers inseparable. He would unburden himself by the hour on the glorious future that awaited the combined arms of England and Russia when their hearts and their territories should run side by side, and the great mission of civilising Asia should begin. That was unsatisfactory, because Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old. You cannot reform a lady of many lovers, and Asia has been insatiable in her flirtations aforetime. She will never attend Sunday-school or learn to vote save with swords for tickets.
Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited him to talk special-correspondently and to make himself as genial as he could. Now and then he volunteered a little, a very little, information about his own sotnia of Cossacks, left apparently to look after themselves somewhere at the back of beyond. He had done rough work in Central Asia, and had seen rather more help-yourself fighting than most men of his years. But he was careful never to betray his superiority, and more than careful to praise on all occasions the appearance, drill, uniform, and organisation of Her Majestys White Hussars. And indeed they were a regiment to be admired. When Lady Durgan, widow of the late Sir John Durgan, arrived in their station, and after a short time had been proposed to by every single man at mess, she put the public sentiment very neatly when she explained that they were all so nice that unless she could marry them all, including the colonel and some majors already married, she was not going to content herself with one hussar. Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle regiment, being by nature contradictious; and the White Hussars were going to wear crape on their arms, but compromised by attending the wedding in full force, and lining the aisle with unutterable reproach. She had jilted them allfrom Basset-Holmer the senior captain to little Mildred the junior subaltern, who could have given her four thousand a year and a title.
The only persons who did not share the general regard for the White Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of Jewish extraction who lived across the border, and answered to the name of Pathan. They had once met the regiment officially and for something less than twenty minutes, but the interview, which was complicated with many casualties, had filled them with prejudice. They even called the White Hussars children of the devil and sons of persons whom it would be perfectly impossible to meet in decent society. Yet they were not above making their aversion fill their money-belts. The regiment possessed carbinesbeautiful Martini-Henry carbines that would lob a bullet into an enemys camp at one thousand yards, and were even handier than the long rifle. Therefore they were coveted all along the border, and since demand inevitably breeds supply, they were supplied at the risk of life and limb for exactly their weight in coined silverseven and one half pounds weight of rupees, or sixteen pounds sterling reckoning the rupee at par. They were stolen at night by snaky-haired thieves who crawled on their stomachs under the nose of the sentries; they disappeared mysteriously from locked arm-racks, and in the hot weather, when all the barrack doors and windows were open, they vanished like puffs of their own smoke. The border people desired them for family vendettas and contingencies. But in the long cold nights of the northern Indian winter they were stolen most extensively. The traffic of murder was liveliest among the hills at that season, and prices ruled high. The regimental guards were first doubled and then trebled. A trooper does not much care if he loses a weaponGovernment must make it goodbut he deeply resents the loss of his sleep. The regiment grew very angry, and one rifle-thief bears the visible marks of their anger upon him to this hour. That incident stopped the burglaries for a time, and the guards were reduced accordingly, and the regiment devoted itself to polo with unexpected results; for it beat by two goals to one that very terrible polo corps the Lushkar Light Horse, though the latter had four ponies apiece for a short hours fight, as well as a native officer who played like a lambent flame across the ground.
They gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The Lushkar team came, and Dirkovitch came, in the fullest full uniform of a Cossack officer, which is as full as a dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and opened his eyes as he regarded. They were lighter men than the Hussars, and they carried themselves with the swing that is the peculiar right of the Punjab Frontier Force and all Irregular Horse. Like everything else in the Service it has to be learnt, but, unlike many things, it is never forgotten, and remains on the body till death.
The great beam-roofed mess-room of the White Hussars was a sight to be remembered. All the mess plate was out on the long tablethe same table that had served up the bodies of five officers after a forgotten fight long and long agothe dingy, battered standards faced the door of entrance, clumps of winter-roses lay between the silver candlesticks, and the portraits of eminent officers deceased looked down on their successors from between the heads of sambhur, nilghai, markhor, and, pride of all the mess, two grinning snow-leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months leave that he might have spent in England, instead of on the road to Thibet and the daily risk of his life by ledge, snow-slide, and grassy slope.
The servants in spotless white muslin and the crest of their regiments on the brow of their turbans waited behind their masters, who were clad in the scarlet and gold of the White Hussars, and the cream and silver of the Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitchs dull green uniform was the only dark spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. He was fraternising effusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was wondering how many of Dirkovitchs Cossacks his own dark wiry down-countrymen could account for in a fair charge. But one does not speak of these things openly.
The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played between the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues ceased for a moment with the removal of the dinner-slips and the first toast of obligation, when an officer rising said, Mr. Vice, the Queen, and little Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, The Queen, God bless her, and the big spurs clanked as the big men heaved themselves up and drank the Queen upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to settle their mess-bills. That Sacrament of the Mess never grows old, and never ceases to bring a lump into the throat of the listener wherever he be by sea or by land. Dirkovitch rose with his brothers glorious, but he could not understand. No-one but an officer can tell what the toast means; and the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. Immediately after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there entered the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team. He could not, of course, eat with the mess, but he came in at dessert, all six feet of him, with the blue and silver turban atop, and the big black boots below. The mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt of his sabre in token of fealty for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and dropped into a vacant chair amid shouts of: Rung ho, Hira Singh! (which being translated means Go in and win ). Did I whack you over the knee, old man? Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil made you play that kicking pig of a pony in the last ten minutes? Shabash, Ressaidar Sahib! Then the voice of the colonel, The health of Ressaidar Hira Singh!
After the shouting had died away Hira Singh rose to reply, for he was the cadet of a royal house, the son of a kings son, and knew what was due on these occasions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment. Much honour have you done me. This will I remember. We came down from afar to play you. But we were beaten. (No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our own ground, y know. Your ponies were cramped from the railway. Dont apologise!) Therefore perhaps we will come again if it be so ordained. (Hear! Hear! Hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!) Then we will play you afresh (Happy to meet you.) till there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far for sport. He dropped one hand on his sword-hilt and his eye wandered to Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. But if by the will of God there arises any other game which is not the polo game, then be assured, Colonel Sahib and officers, that we will play it out side by side, though they, again his eye sought Dirkovitch, though they, I say, have fifty ponies to our one horse. And with a deep-mouthed Rung ho! that sounded like a musket-butt on flagstones he sat down amid leaping glasses.
Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandythe terrible brandy aforementioneddid not understand, nor did the expurgated translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly Hira Singhs was the speech of the evening, and the clamour might have continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot without that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. Then there was a scuffle and a yell of pain.
Carbine-stealing again! said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in his chair. This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries have killed him.
The feet of armed men pounded on the verandah flags, and it was as though something was being dragged.
Why dont they put him in the cells till the morning? said the colonel testily. See if theyve damaged him, sergeant.
The mess sergeant fled out into the darkness and returned with two troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.
Caught a man stealin carbines, sir, said the corporal. Leastways e was crawlin towards the barricks, sir, past the main road sentries, an the sentry e sez, sir
The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen so destitute and demoralised an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh started slightly at the sound of the mans pain. Dirkovitch took another glass of brandy.
What does the sentry say? said the colonel.
Sez e speaks English, sir, said the corporal.
So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the sergeant! If he spoke all the Tongues of the Pentecost youve no business
Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred had risen from his place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.
Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away, said he to the colonel, for he was a much privileged subaltern. He put his arms round the rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may not have been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in his being six feet four and big in proportion. The corporal seeing that an officer was disposed to look after the capture, and that the colonels eye was beginning to blaze, promptly removed himself and his men. The mess was left alone with the carbine-thief, who laid his head on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly, and inconsolably as little children weep.
Hira Singh leapt to his feet. Colonel Sahib, said he, that man is no Afghan, for they weep Ai! Ai! Nor is he of Hindustan, for they weep Oh! Ho! He weeps after the fashion of the white men, who say Ow! Ow!
Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh? said the captain of the Lushkar team.
Hear him! said Hira Singh simply, pointing at the crumpled figure that wept as though it would never cease.
He said, My God! said little Mildred. I heard him say it.
The colonel and the mess-room looked at the man in silence. It is a horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the topof her palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man must cry from his diaphragm, and it rends him to pieces.
Poor devil! said the colonel, coughing tremendously. We ought to send him to hospital. Hes been man-handled.
Now the adjutant loved his carbines. They were to him as his grandchildren, the men standing in the first place. He grunted rebelliously: I can understand an Afghan stealing, because hes built that way. But I cant understand his crying. That makes it worse.
The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling beyond a shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in the construction of the mess-room, this shadow was always thrown when the candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White Hussars. They were in fact rather proud of it.
Is he going to cry all night? said the colonel, or are we supposed to sit up with little Mildreds guest until he feels better?
The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess. Oh, my God! he said, and every soul in the mess rose to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain did a deed for which he ought to have been given the Victoria Crossdistinguished gallantry in a fight against overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his eyes as the hostess picks up the ladies at the opportune moment, and pausing only by the colonels chair to say, This isnt our affair, you know, sir, led them into the verandah and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last to go, and he looked at Dirkovitch. But Dirkovitch had departed into a brandy-paradise of his own. His lips moved without sound and he was studying the coffin on the ceiling.
Whitewhite all over, said Basset-Holmer, the adjutant. What a pernicious renegade he must be! I wonder where he came from?
The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and Who are you? said he.
There was no answer. The man stared round the mess-room and smiled in the colonels face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman than a man till Boot and saddle was sounded, repeated the question in a voice that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man only smiled. Dirkovitch at the far end of the table slid gently from his chair to the floor. No son of Adam in this present imperfect world can mix the Hussars champagne with the Hussars brandy by five and eight glasses of each without remembering the pit whence he was digged and descending thither. The band began to play the tune with which the White Hussars from the date of their formation have concluded all their functions. They would sooner be disbanded than abandon that tune; it is a part of their system. The man straightened himself in his chair and drummed on the table with his fingers.
I dont see why we should entertain lunatics, said the colonel. Call a guard and send him off to the cells. Well look into the business in the morning. Give him a glass of wine first, though.
Little Mildred filled a sherry-glass with the brandy and thrust it over to the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he straightened himself yet more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate opposite and fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery connected with that piece of plate, in the shape of a spring which converted what was a seven-branched candlestick, three springs on each side and one in the middle, into a sort of wheel-spoke candelabrum. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, then moved on to another picture, the mess watching him without a word. When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head and seemed distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar in full uniform caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the mantelpiece with inquiry in his eyes.
What is itOh, what is it? said little Mildred. Then as a mother might speak to a child, That is a horse. Yes, a horse.
Very slowly came the answer in a thick, passionless guttural Yes, Ihave seen. Butwhere is the horse?
You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as the men drew back to give the stranger full room in his wanderings. There was no question of calling the guard.
Again he spokevery slowly, Where is our horse?
There is but one horse in the White Hussars, and his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess-room. He is the piebald drum- horse, the king of the regimental band, that served the regiment for seven-and-thirty years, and in the end was shot for old age. Half the mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it into the mans hands. He placed it above the mantelpiece, it clattered on the ledge as his poor hands dropped it, and he staggered towards the bottom of the table, falling into Mildreds chair. Then all the men spoke to one another something after this fashion, The drum-horse hasnt hung over the mantelpiece since 67. How does he know? Mildred, go and speak to him again. Colonel, what are you going to do? Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself together. It isnt possible anyhow. The mans a lunatic.
Little Mildred stood at the colonels side, talking in his ear. Will you be good enough to take your seats please, gentlemen! he said, and the mess dropped into the chairs. Only Dirkovitchs seat, next to little Mildreds, was blank, and little Mildred himself had found Hira Singhs place. The wide-eyed mess-sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence. Once more the colonel rose, but his hand shook, and the port spilled on the table as he looked straight at the man in little Mildreds chair and said hoarsely, Mr. Vice, the Queen. There was a little pause, but the man sprung to his feet and answered without hesitation, The Queen, God bless her! and as he emptied the thin glass he snapped the shank between his fingers.
Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom of a few messes to drink the Queens toast in broken glass, to the vast delight of the mess-contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is nothing to break anything for, except now and again the word of a Government, and that has been broken already.
That settles it, said the colonel, with a gasp. Hes not a sergeant. What in the world is he?
The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of questions would have scared any man. It was no wonder that the ragged, filthy invader could only smile and shake his head.
From under the table, calm and smiling, rose Dirkovitch, who had been roused from healthful slumber by feet upon his body. By the side of the man he rose, and the man shrieked and grovelled. It was a horrible sight, coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the toast that had brought the strayed wits together.
Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but little Mildred heaved him up in an instant. It is not good that a gentleman who can answer to the Queens toast should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.
The hasty action tore the wretchs upper clothing nearly to the waist, and his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon in the world that cuts in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat. Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated. Also his face changed. He said something that sounded like Shto ve takete, and the man fawning answered, Chetyre.
Whats that? said everybody together.
His number. That is number four, you know. Dirkovitch spoke very thickly.
What has a Queens officer to do with a qualified number? said the Colonel, and an unpleasant growl ran round the table.
How can I tell? said the affable Oriental with a sweet smile. He is ahow you have it?escaperun-a-way, from over there. He nodded towards the darkness of the night.
Speak to him if hell answer you, and speak to him gently, said little Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper to all present that Dirkovitch should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Russian to the creature who answered so feebly and with such evident dread. But since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no one said a word. All breathed heavily, leaning forward, in the long gaps of the conversation. The next time that they have no engagements on hand the White Hussars intend to go to St. Petersburg in a body to learn Russian.
He does not know how many years ago, said Dirkovitch, facing the mess, but he says it was very long ago in a war. I think that there was an accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the war.
The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls! said little Mildred, and the adjutant dashed off bare-headed to the orderly- room, where the muster-rolls of the regiment were kept. He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch conclude, Therefore, my dear friends, I am most sorry to say there was an accident which would have been reparable if he had apologised to that our colonel, which he had insulted.
Then followed another growl which the colonel tried to beat down. The mess was in no mood just then to weigh insults to Russian colonels.
He does not remember, but I think that there was an accident, and so he was not exchanged among the prisoners, but he was sent to another placehow do you say?the country. So, he says, he came here. He does not know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany,the man caught the word, nodded, and shivered,at Zhigansk and Irkutsk. I cannot understand how he escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for many years, but how many years he has forgottenthat with many things. It was an accident; done because he did not apologise to that our colonel. Ah!
Instead of echoing Dirkovitchs sigh of regret, it is sad to record that the White Hussars livelily exhibited un-Christian delight and other emotions, hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed and yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men flung themselves at these.
Steady! Fifty-sixfifty-fivefifty-four, said Holmer. Here we are. Lieutenant Austin Limmason. Missing. That was before Sebastopol. What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was quietly shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out.
But he never apologised. Said hed see him damned first, chorused the mess.
Poor chap! I suppose he never had the chance afterwards. How did he come here? said the colonel.
The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.
Do you know who you are?
It laughed weakly.
Do you know that you are LimmasonLieutenant Limmason of the White Hussars?
Swiftly as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, Yes, ImLimmason, of course. The light died out in his eyes, and the man collapsed, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight from Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not seem to lead to continuity of thought. The man could not explain how, like a homing pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of what he had suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before Dirkovitch as instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the toast of the Queen. The rest was a blank that the dreaded Russian tongue could only in part remove. His head bowed on his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately.
The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this extremely inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped the table-edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and began:
Fellow-soldiers glorioustrue friends and hospitables. It was an accident, and deplorablemost deplorable. Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess. But you will think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not? The Czar! Posh! I slap my fingersI snap my fingers at him. Do I believe in him? No! But in us Slav who has done nothing, him I believe. Seventyhow muchmillions peoples that have done nothingnot one thing. Posh! Napoleon was an episode. He banged a hand on the table. Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in the worldout here. All our work is to do; and it shall be done, old peoples. Get a-way! He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed to the man. You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one littleoh, so littleaccident, that no one remembered. Now he isThat! So will you be, brother soldiers so brave so will you be. But you will never come back. You will all go where he is gone, orhe pointed to the great coffin-shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, Seventy millionsget a-way, you old peoples, fell asleep.
Sweet, and to the point, said little Mildred. Whats the use of getting wroth? Lets make this poor devil comfortable.
But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away again three days later, when the wail of the Dead March, and the tramp of the squadrons, told the wondering Station, who saw no gap in the mess-table, that an officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found commission.
And Dirkovitch, bland, supple, and always genial, went away too by a night train. Little Mildred and another man saw him off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open hand, the law of that mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality.
Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey, said little Mildred.
Au revoir, said the Russian.
Indeed! But we thought you were going home?
Yes, but I will come again. My dear friends, is that road shut? He pointed to where the North Star burned over the Khyber Pass.
By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old man, any time you like. Got everything you want? Cheroots, ice, bedding? Thats all right. Well, au revoir, Dirkovitch.
Um, said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train grew small. Ofalltheunmitigated!
Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the North Star and hummed a selection from recent Simla burlesque that had much delighted the White Hussars. It ran
Im sorry for Mister Bluebeard, Im sorry to cause him pain; But a terrible spree theres sure to be When he comes back again. |
THE INDUS had risen in flood without warning. Last night it was a fordable shallow; to-night five miles of raving muddy water parted bank and caving bank, and the river was still rising under the moon. A litter borne by six bearded men, all unused to the work, stopped in the white sand that bordered the whiter plain.
Its Gods will, they said. We dare not cross to-night, even in a boat. Let us light a fire and cook food. We be tired men. They looked at the litter inquiringly. Within, the Deputy Commissioner of the Kot-Kumharsen district lay dying of fever. They had brought him across country, six fighting-men of a frontier clan that he had won over to the paths of a moderate righteousness, when he had broken down at the foot of their inhospitable hills. And Tallantire, his assistant, rode with them, heavy-hearted as heavy-eyed with sorrow and lack of sleep. He had served under the sick man for three years, and had learned to love him as men associated in toil of the hardest learn to loveor hate. Dropping from his horse he parted the curtains of the litter and peered inside.
OrdeOrde, old man, can you hear? We have to wait till the river goes down, worse luck.
I hear, returned a dry whisper. Wait till the river goes down. I thought we should reach camp before the dawn. Polly knows. Shell meet me.
One of the litter-men stared across the river and caught a faint twinkle of light on the far side. He whispered to Tallantire, There are his campfires, and his wife. They will cross in the morning, for they have better boats. Can he live so long?
Tallantire shook his head. Yardley-Orde was very near to death. What need to vex his soul with hopes of a meeting that could not be? The river gulped at the banks, brought down a cliff of sand, and snarled the more hungrily. The littermen sought for fuel in the wastedried camel-thorn and refuse of the camps that had waited at the ford. Their sword-belts clinked as they moved softly in the haze of the moonlight, and Tallantires horse coughed to explain that he would like a blanket.
Im cold too, said the voice from the litter. I fancy this is the end. Poor Polly!
Tallantire rearranged the blankets; Khoda Dad Khan, seeing this, stripped off his own heavy-wadded sheepskin coat and added it to the pile. I shall be warm by the fire presently, said he. Tallantire took the wasted body of his chief into his arms and held it against his breast. Perhaps if they kept him very warm Orde might live to see his wife once more. If only blind Providence would send a three-foot fall in the river!
Thats better, said Orde faintly. Sorry to be a nuisance, but isis there anything to drink?
They gave him milk and whisky, and Tallantire felt a little warmth against his own breast. Orde began to mutter.
It isnt that I mind dying, he said. Its leaving Polly and the district. Thank God! we have no children. Dick, you know, Im dippedawfully dippeddebts in my first five years service. It isnt much of a pension, but enough for her. She has her mother at home. Getting there is the difficulty. Andandyou see, not being a soldiers wife
Well arrange the passage home, of course, said Tallantire quietly.
Its not nice to think of sending round the hat; but, good Lord! how many men I lie here and remember that had to do it! Mortens deadhe was of my year. Shaughnessy is dead, and he had children; I remember he used to read us their school-letters; what a bore we thought him! Evans is deadKot-Kumharsen killed him! Ricketts of Myndonie is deadand Im going too. Man that is born of a woman is small potatoes and few in the hill. That reminds me, Dick; the four Khusru Kheyl villages in our border want a one-third remittance this spring. Thats fair; their crops are bad. See that they get it, and speak to Ferris about the canal. I should like to have lived till that was finished; it means so much for the North-Indus villagesbut Ferris is an idle beggarwake him up. Youll have charge of the district till my successor comes. I wish they would appoint you permanently; you know the folk. I suppose it will be Bullows, though. Good man, but too weak for frontier work; and he doesnt understand the priests. The blind priest at Jagai will bear watching. Youll find it in my papers,in the uniform case, I think. Call the Khusru Kheyl men up; Ill hold my last public audience. Khoda Dad Khan!
The leader of the men sprang to the side of the litter, his companions following.
Men, Im dying, said Orde quickly, in the vernacular; and soon there will be no more Orde Sahib to twist your tails and prevent you from raiding cattle.
God forbid this thing! broke out the deep bass chorus. The Sahib is not going to die.
Yes, he is; and then he will know, whether Mahomed speaks truth, or Moses. But you must be good men when I am not here. Such of you as live in our borders must pay your taxes quietly as before. I have spoken of the villages to be gently treated this year. Such of you as live in the hills must refrain from cattle-lifting, and burn no more thatch, and turn a deaf ear to the voice of the priests, who, not knowing the strength of the Government, would lead you into foolish wars, wherein you will surely die and your crops be eaten by strangers. And you must not sack any caravans, and must leave your arms at the police-post when you come in; as has been your custom, and my order. And Tallantire Sahib will be with you, but I do not know who takes my place. I speak now true talk, for I am as it were already dead, my children,for though ye be strong men, ye are children.
And thou art our father and our mother, broke in Khoda Dad Khan with an oath. What shall we do, now there is no one to speak for us, or to teach us to go wisely!
There remains Tallantire Sahib. Go to him; he knows your talk and your heart. Keep the young men quiet, listen to the old men, and obey. Khoda Dad Khan, take my ring. The watch and chain go to thy brother. Keep those things for my sake, and I will speak to whatever God I may encounter and tell him that the Khusru Kheyl are good men. Ye have my leave to go.
Khoda Dad Khan, the ring upon his finger, choked audibly as he caught the well-known formula that closed an interview. His brother turned to look across the river. The dawn was breaking, and a speck of white showed on the dull silver of the stream. She comes, said the man under his breath. Can he live for another two hours? And he pulled the newly-acquired watch out of his belt and looked uncomprehendingly at the dial, as he had seen Englishmen do.
For two hours the bellying sail tacked and blundered up and down the river, Tallantire still clasping Orde in his arms, and Khoda Dad Khan chafing his feet. He spoke now and again of the district and his wife, but, as the end neared, more frequently of the latter. They hoped he did not know that she was even then risking her life in a crazy native boat to regain him. But the awful foreknowledge of the dying deceived them. Wrenching himself forward, Orde looked through the curtains and saw how near was the sail. Thats Polly, he said simply, though his mouth was wried with agony. Polly andthe grimmest practical joke ever played on a man. Dickyoullhavetoexplain.
And an hour later Tallantire met on the bank a woman in a gingham riding-habit and a sun-hat who cried out to him for her husbandher boy and her darlingwhile Khoda Dad Khan threw himself face-down on the sand and covered his eyes.
The very simplicity of the notion was its charm. What more easy to win a reputation for far-seeing statesmanship, originality, and, above all, deference to the desires of the people, than by appointing a child of the country to the rule of that country? Two hundred millions of the most loving and grateful folk under Her Majestys dominion would laud the fact, and their praise would endure for ever. Yet he was indifferent to praise or blame, as befitted the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys. His administration was based upon principle, and the principle must be enforced in season and out of season. His pen and tongue had created the New India, teeming with possibilitiesloud-voiced, insistent, a nation among nationsall his very own. Wherefore the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys took another step in advance, and with it counsel of those who should have advised him on the appointment of a successor to Yardley-Orde. There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, M.A. In short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? The district in South-Eastern Bengal might with advantage, he apprehended, pass over to a younger civilian of Mr. G. C. Dés nationality (who had written a remarkably clever pamphlet on the political value of sympathy in administration); and Mr. G. C. Dé could be transferred northward to Kot-Kumharsen. The Viceroy was averse, on principle, to interfering with appointments under control of the Provincial Governments. He wished it to be understood that he merely recommended and advised in this instance. As regarded the mere question of race, Mr. Grish Chunder Dé was more English than the English, and yet possessed of that peculiar sympathy and insight which the best among the best Service in the world could only win to at the end of their service.
The stern, black-bearded kings who sit about the Council-board of India divided on the step, with the inevitable result of driving the Very Greatest of All the Viceroys into the borders of hysteria, and a bewildered obstinacy pathetic as that of a child.
The principle is sound enough, said the weary-eyed Head of the Red Provinces in which Kot-Kumharsen lay, for he too held theories. The only difficulty is
Put the screw on the district officials; brigade Dé with a very strong Deputy Commissioner on each side of him; give him the best assistant in the Province; rub the fear of God into the people beforehand; and if anything goes wrong, say that his colleagues didnt back him up. All these lovely little experiments recoil on the District-Officer in the end, said the Knight of the Drawn Sword with a truthful brutality that made the Head of the Red Provinces shudder. And on a tacit understanding of this kind the transfer was accomplished, as quietly as might be for many reasons.
It is sad to think that what goes for public opinion in India did not generally see the wisdom of the Viceroys appointment. There were not lacking indeed hireling organs, notoriously in the pay of a tyrannous bureaucracy, who more than hinted that His Excellency was a fool, a dreamer of dreams, a doctrinaire, and, worst of all, a trifler with the lives of men. The Viceroys Excellence Gazette, published in Calcutta, was at pains to thank Our beloved Viceroy for once more and again thus gloriously vindicating the potentialities of the Bengali nations for extended executive and administrative duties in foreign parts beyond our ken. We do not at all doubt that our excellent fellow-townsman, Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, Esq., M.A., will uphold the prestige of the Bengali, notwithstanding what underhand intrigue and peshbundi may be set on foot to insidiously nip his fame and blast his prospects among the proud civilians, some of which will now have to serve under a despised native and take orders too. How will you like that, Misters? We entreat our beloved Viceroy still to substantiate himself superiorly to race-prejudice and colour-blindness, and to allow the flower of this now our Civil Service all the full pays and allowances granted to his more fortunate brethren.
When does this man take over charge? Im alone just now, and I gather that Im to stand fast under him.
Would you have cared for a transfer? said Bullows keenly. Then, laying his hand on Tallantires shoulder: Were all in the same boat; dont desert us. And yet, why the devil should you stay, if you can get another charge?
It was Ordes, said Tallantire simply.
Well, its Dés now. Hes a Bengali of the Bengalis, crammed with code and case law; a beautiful man so far as routine and deskwork go, and pleasant to talk to. They naturally have always kept him in his own home district, where all his sisters and his cousins and his aunts lived, somewhere south of Dacca. He did no more than turn the place into a pleasant little family preserve, allowed his subordinates to do what they liked, and let everybody have a chance at the shekels. Consequently hes immensely popular down there.
Ive nothing to do with that. How on earth am I to explain to the district that they are going to be governed by a Bengali? Do youdoes the Government, I meansuppose that the Khusru Kheyl will sit quiet when they once know? What will the Mahomedan heads of villages say? How will the policeMuzbi Sikhs and Pathanshow will they work under him? We couldnt say anything if the Government appointed a sweeper; but my people will say a good deal, you know that. Its a piece of cruel folly!
My dear boy, I know all that, and more. Ive represented it, and have been told that I am exhibiting culpable and puerile prejudice. By Jove, if the Khusru Kheyl dont exhibit something worse than that I dont know the Border! The chances are that you will have the district alight on your hands, and I shall have to leave my work and help you pull through. I neednt ask you to stand by the Bengali man in every possible way. Youll do that for your own sake.
For Ordes. I cant say that I care twopence personally.
Dont be an ass. Its grievous enough, God knows, and the Government will know later on; but thats no reason for your sulking. You must try to run the district; you must stand between him and as much insult as possible; you must show him the ropes; you must pacify the Khusru Kheyl, and just warn Curbar of the Police to look out for trouble by the way. Im always at the end of a telegraph-wire, and willing to peril my reputation to hold the district together. Youll lose yours, of course. If you keep things straight, and he isnt actually beaten with a stick when hes on tour, hell get all the credit. If anything goes wrong, youll be told that you didnt support him loyally.
I know what Ive got to do, said Tallantire wearily, and Im going to it. But its hard.
The work is with us, the event is with Allah,as Orde used to say when he was more than usually in hot water. And Bullows rode away.
That two gentlemen in Her Majestys Bengal Civil Service should thus discuss a third, also in that service, and a cultured and affable man withal, seems strange and saddening. Yet listen to the artless babble of the Blind Mullah of Jagai, the priest of the Khusru Kheyl, sitting upon a rock overlooking the Border. Five years before, a chance-hurled shell from a screw-gun battery had dashed earth in the face of the Mullah, then urging a rush of Ghazis against half a dozen British bayonets. So he became blind, and hated the English none the less for the little accident. Yardley-Orde knew his failing, and had many times laughed at him therefor.
Dogs you are, said the Blind Mullah to the listening tribesmen round the fire. Whipped dogs! Because you listened to Orde Sahib and called him father and behaved as his children, the British Government have proven how they regard you. Orde Sahib ye know is dead.
Ai! ai! ai! said half a dozen voices.
He was a man. Comes now in his stead, whom think ye? A Bengali of Bengalan eater of fish from the South.
A lie! said Khoda Dad Khan. And but for the small matter of thy priesthood, Id drive my gun butt-first down thy throat.
Oho, art thou there, lickspittle of the English? Go in to-morrow across the Border to pay service to Orde Sahibs successor, and thou shalt slip thy shoes at the tent-door of a Bengali, as thou shalt hand thy offering to a Bengalis black fist. This I know; and in my youth, when a young man spoke evil to a Mullah holding the doors of Heaven and Hell, the gun-butt was not rammed down the Mullahs gullet. No!
The Blind Mullah hated Khoda Dad Khan with Afghan hatred, both being rivals for the headship of the tribe; but the latter was feared for bodily as the other for spiritual gifts. Khoda Dad Khan looked at Ordes ring and grunted, I go in to-morrow because I am not an old fool, preaching war against the English. If the Government, smitten with madness, have done this, then
Then, croaked the Mullah, thou wilt take out the young men and strike at the four villages within the Border?
Or wring thy neck, black raven of Jehannum, for a bearer of ill-tidings.
Khoda Dad Khan oiled his long locks with great care, put on his best Bokhara belt, a new turban-cap, and fine green shoes, and accompanied by a few friends came down from the hills to pay a visit to the new Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen. Also he bore tributefour or five priceless gold mohurs of Akbars time in a white handkerchief. These the Deputy Commissioner would touch and remit. The little ceremony used to be a sign that, so far as Khoda Dad Khans personal influence went, the Khusru Kheyl would be good boys,till the next time; especially if Khoda Dad Khan happened to like the new Deputy Commissioner. In Yardley-Ordes consulship his visit concluded with a sumptuous dinner and perhaps forbidden liquors; certainly with some wonderful tales and great good-fellowship. Then Khoda Dad Khan would swagger back to his hold, vowing that Orde Sahib was one prince and Tallantire Sahib another, and that whosoever went a-raiding into British territory would be flayed alive. On this occasion he found the Deputy Commissioners tents looking much as usual. Regarding himself as privileged he strode through the open door to confront a suave, portly Bengali in English costume writing at a table. Unversed in the elevating influence of education, and not in the least caring for university degrees, Khoda Dad Khan promptly set the man down for a Babuthe native clerk of the Deputy Commissionera hated and despised animal.
Ugh! said he cheerfully. Wheres your master, Babujee?
I am the Deputy Commissioner, said the gentleman in English.
Now he overvalued the effects of university degrees, and stared Khoda Dad Khan in the face. But if from your earliest infancy you have been accustomed to look on battle, murder, and sudden death, if spilt blood affects your nerves as much as red paint, and, above all, if you have faithfully believed that the Bengali was the servant of all Hindustan, and that all Hindustan was vastly inferior to your own large, lustful self, you can endure, even though uneducated, a very large amount of looking over. You can even stare down a graduate of an Oxford college if the latter has been born in a hothouse, of stock bred in a hot-house, and fearing physical pain as some men fear sin; especially if your opponents mother has frightened him to sleep in his youth with horrible stories of devils inhabiting Afghanistan, and dismal legends of the black North. The eyes behind the gold spectacles sought the floor. Khoda Dad Khan chuckled, and swung out to find Tallantire hard by. Here, said he roughly, thrusting the coins before him, touch and remit. That answers for my good behaviour. But, O Sahib, has the Government gone mad to send a black Bengali dog to us? And am I to pay service to such an one? And are you to work under him? What does it mean?
It is an order, said Tallantire. He had expected something of this kind. He is a very clever S-sahib.
He a Sahib! Hes a kala admia black manunfit to run at the tail of a potters donkey. All the peoples of the earth have harried Bengal. It is written. Thou knowest when we of the North wanted women or plunder whither went we? To Bengalwhere else? What childs talk is this of Sahibdomafter Orde Sahib too! Of a truth the Blind Mullah was right.
What of him? asked Tallantire uneasily. He mistrusted that old man with his dead eyes and his deadly tongue.
Nay, now, because of the oath that I sware to Orde Sahib when we watched him die by the river yonder, I will tell. In the first place, is it true that the English have set the heel of the Bengali on their own neck, and that there is no more English rule in the land?
I am here, said Tallantire, and I serve the Maharanee of England.
The Mullah said otherwise, and further that because we loved Orde Sahib the Government sent us a pig to show that we were dogs, who till now have been held by the strong hand. Also that they were taking away the white soldiers, that more Hindustanis might come, and that all was changing.
This is the worst of ill-considered handling of a very large country. What looks so feasible in Calcutta, so right in Bombay, so unassailable in Madras, is misunderstood by the North, and entirely changes its complexion on the banks of the Indus. Khoda Dad Khan explained as clearly as he could that, though he himself intended to be good, he really could not answer for the more reckless members of his tribe under the leadership of the Blind Mullah. They might or they might not give trouble, but they certainly had no intention whatever of obeying the new Deputy Commissioner. Was Tallantire perfectly sure that in the event of any systematic border-raiding the force in the district could put it down promptly?
Tell the Mullah if he talks any more fools talk, said Tallantire curtly, that he takes his men on to certain death, and his tribe to blockade, trespass-fine, and blood-money. But why do I talk to one who no longer carries weight in the counsels of the tribe?
Khoda Dad Khan pocketed that insult. He had learned something that he much wanted to know, and returned to his hills to be sarcastically complimented by the Mullah, whose tongue raging round the camp-fires was deadlier flame than ever dung-cake fed.
Be pleased to consider here for a moment the unknown district of Kot-Kumharsen. It lay cut lengthways by the Indus under the line of the Khusru hillsramparts of useless earth and tumbled stone. It was seventy miles long by fifty broad, maintained a population of something less than two hundred thousand, and paid taxes to the extent of forty thousand pounds a year on an area that was by rather more than half sheer, hopeless waste. The cultivators were not gentle people, the miners for salt were less gentle still, and the cattle-breeders least gentle of all. A police-post in the top right-hand corner and a tiny mud fort in the top left-hand corner prevented as much salt-smuggling and cattle-lifting as the influence of the civilians could not put down; and in the bottom right-hand corner lay Jumala, the district headquartersa pitiful knot of lime-washed barns facetiously rented as houses, reeking with frontier fever, leaking in the rain, and ovens in the summer.
It was to this place that Grish Chunder Dé was travelling, there formally to take over charge of the district. But the news of his coming had gone before. Bengalis were as scarce as poodles among the simple Borderers, who cut each others heads open with their long spades and worshipped impartially at Hindu and Mahomedan shrines. They crowded to see him, pointing at him, and diversely comparing him to a gravid milch-buffalo, or a broken-down horse, as their limited range of metaphor prompted. They laughed at his police-guard, and wished to know how long the burly Sikhs were going to lead Bengali apes. They inquired whether he had brought his women with him, and advised him explicitly not to tamper with theirs. It remained for a wrinkled hag by the roadside to slap her lean breasts as he passed, crying, I have suckled six that could have eaten six thousand of him. The Government shot them, and made this That a king! Whereat a blue-turbaned huge-boned plough-mender shouted, Have hope, mother o mine! He may yet go the way of thy wastrels. And the children, the little brown puff-balls, regarded curiously. It was generally a good thing for infancy to stray into Orde Sahibs tent, where copper coins were to be won for the mere wishing, and tales of the most authentic, such as even their mothers knew but the first half of. No! This fat black man could never tell them how Pir Prith hauled the eye-teeth out of ten devils; how the big stones came to lie all in a row on top of the Khusru hills, and what happened if you shouted through the village-gate to the gray wolf at even Badl Khas is dead. Meantime Grish Chunder Dé talked hastily and much to Tallantire, after the manner of those who are more English than the English,of Oxford and home, with much curious book-knowledge of bump-suppers, cricket-matches, hunting-runs, and other unholy sports of the alien. We must get these fellows in hand, he said once or twice uneasily; get them well in hand, and drive them on a tight rein. No use, you know, being slack with your district.
And a moment later Tallantire heard Debendra Nath Dé, who brotherliwise had followed his kinsmans fortune and hoped for the shadow of his protection as a pleader, whisper in Bengali, Better are dried fish at Dacca than drawn swords at Delhi. Brother of mine, these men are devils, as our mother said. And you will always have to ride upon a horse!
That night there was a public audience in a broken-down little town thirty miles from Jumala, when the new Deputy Commissioner, in reply to the greetings of the subordinate native officials, delivered a speech. It was a carefully thought-out speech, which would have been very valuable had not his third sentence begun with three innocent words, Hamara hookum haiIt is my order. Then there was a laugh, clear and bell-like, from the back of the big tent, where a few border land-holders sat, and the laugh grew and scorn mingled with it, and the lean, keen face of Debendra Nath Dé paled, and Grish Chunder turning to Tallantire spake: Youyou put up this arrangement. Upon that instant the noise of hoofs rang with- out, and there entered Curbar, the District Superintendent of Police, sweating and dusty. The State had tossed him into a corner of the province for seventeen weary years, there to check smuggling of salt, and to hope for promotion that never came. He had forgotten how to keep his white uniform clean, had screwed rusty spurs into patent-leather shoes, and clothed his head indifferently with a helmet or a turban. Soured, old, worn with heat and cold, he waited till he should be entitled to sufficient pension to keep him from starving.
Tallantire, said he, disregarding Grish Chunder Dé, come outside. I want to speak to you. They withdrew.
Its this, continued Curbar. The Khusru Kheyl have rushed and cut up half a dozen of the coolies on Ferriss new canal-embankment; killed a couple of men and carried off a woman. I wouldnt trouble you about thatFerris is after them and Hugonin, my assistant, with ten mounted police. But thats only the beginning, I fancy. Their fires are out on the Hassan Ardeb heights, and unless were pretty quick therell be a flare-up all along our Border. They are sure to raid the four Khusru villages on our side of the line: theres been bad blood between them for years; and you know the Blind Mullah has been preaching a holy war since Orde went out. Whats your notion?
Damn! said Tallantire thoughtfully. Theyve begun quick. Well, it seems to me Id better ride off to Fort Ziar and get what men I can there to picket among the lowland villages, if its not too late. Tommy Dodd commands at Fort Ziar, I think. Ferris and Hugonin ought to teach the canal-thieves a lesson, andNo, we cant have the Head of the Police ostentatiously guarding the Treasury. You go back to the canal. Ill wire Bullows to come in to Jumala with a strong police-guard, and sit on the Treasury. They wont touch the place, but it looks well.
III insist upon knowing what this means, said the voice of the Deputy Commissioner, who had followed the speakers.
Oh! said Curbar, who being in the Police could not understand that fifteen years of education must, on principle, change the Bengali into a Briton. There has been a fight on the Border, and heaps of men are killed. Theres going to be another fight, and heaps more will be killed.
What for?
Because the teeming millions of this district dont exactly approve of you, and think that under your benign rule they are going to have a good time. It strikes me that you had better make arrangements. I act, as you know, by your orders. What do you advise?
II take you all to witness that I have not yet assumed charge of the district, stammered the Deputy Commissioner, not in the tones of the more English.
Ah, I thought so. Well, as I was saying, Tallantire, your plan is sound. Carry it out. Do you want an escort?
No; only a decent horse. But how about wiring to headquarters?
I fancy, from the colour of his cheeks, that your superior officer will send some wonderful telegrams before the nights over. Let him do that, and we shall have half the troops of the province coming up to see whats the trouble. Well, run along, and take care of yourselfthe Khusru Kheyl jab upwards from below, remember. Ho! Mir Khan, give Tallantire Sahib the best of the horses, and tell five men to ride to Jumala with the Deputy Commissioner Sahib Bahadur. There is a hurry toward.
There was; and it was not in the least bettered by Debendra Nath Dé clinging to a policemans bridle and demanding the shortest, the very shortest way to Jumala. Now originality is fatal to the Bengali. Debendra Nath should have stayed with his brother, who rode steadfastly for Jumala on the railway-line, thanking gods entirely unknown to the most catholic of universities that he had not taken charge of the district, and could stillhappy resource of a fertile race!fall sick.
And I grieve to say that when he reached his goal two policemen, not devoid of rude wit, who had been conferring together as they bumped in their saddles, arranged an entertainment for his behoof. It consisted of first one and then the other entering his room with prodigious details of war, the massing of bloodthirsty and devilish tribes, and the burning of towns. It was almost as good, said these scamps, as riding with Curbar after evasive Afghans. Each invention kept the hearer at work for half an hour on telegrams which the sack of Delhi would hardly have justified. To every power that could move a bayonet or transfer a terrified man, Grish Chunder Dé appealed telegraphically. He was alone, his assistants had fled, and in truth he had not taken over charge of the district. Had the telegrams been despatched many things would have occurred; but since the only signaller in Jumala had gone to bed, and the station-master, after one look at the tremendous pile of paper, discovered that railway regulations forbade the forwarding of imperial messages, policemen Ram Singh and Nihal Singh were fain to turn the stuff into a pillow and slept on it very comfortably.
Tallantire drove his spurs into a rampant skewbald stallion with china-blue eyes, and settled himself for the forty-mile ride to Fort Ziar. Knowing his district blindfold, he wasted no time hunting for short cuts, but headed across the richer grazing-ground to the ford where Orde had died and been buried. The dusty ground deadened the noise of his horses hoofs, the moon threw his shadow, a restless goblin, before him, and the heavy dew drenched him to the skin. Hillock, scrub that brushed against the horses belly, unmetalled road where the whip-like foliage of the tamarisks lashed his forehead, illimitable levels of lowland furred with bent and speckled with drowsing cattle, waste, and hillock anew, dragged themselves past, and the skewbald was labouring in the deep sand of the Indus-ford. Tallantire was conscious of no distinct thought till the nose of the dawdling ferry-boat grounded on the farther side, and his horse shied snorting at the white headstone of Ordes grave. Then he uncovered, and shouted that the dead might hear, Theyre out, old man! Wish me luck. In the chill of the dawn he was hammering with a stirrup-iron at the gate of Fort Ziar, where fifty sabres of that tattered regiment, the Belooch Beshaklis, were supposed to guard Her Majestys interests along a few hundred miles of Border. This particular fort was commanded by a subaltern, who, born of the ancient family of the Derouletts, naturally answered to the name of Tommy Dodd. Him Tallantire found robed in a sheepskin coat, shaking with fever like an aspen, and trying to read the native apothecarys list of invalids.
So youve come, too, said he. Well, were all sick here, and I dont think I can horse thirty men; but were bubbubbub blessed willing. Stop, does this impress you as a trap or a lie? He tossed a scrap of paper to Tallantire, on which was written painfully in crabbed Gurmukhi, We cannot hold young horses. They will feed after the moon goes down in the four border villages issuing from the Jagai pass on the next night. Then in English round handYour sincere friend.
Good man! said Tallantire. Thats Khoda Dad Khans work, I know. Its the only piece of English he could ever keep in his head, and he is immensely proud of it. He is playing against the Blind Mullah for his own handthe treacherous young ruffian!
Dont know the politics of the Khusru Kheyl, but if youre satisfied, I am. That was pitched in over the gatehead last night, and I thought we might pull ourselves together and see what was on. Oh, but were sick with fever here and no mistake! Is this going to be a big business, think you? said Tommy Dodd.
Tallantire gave him briefly the outlines of the case, and Tommy Dodd whistled and shook with fever alternately. That day he devoted to strategy, the art of war, and the enlivenment of the invalids, till at dusk there stood ready forty-two troopers, lean, worn, and dishevelled, whom Tommy Dodd surveyed with pride, and addressed thus, O men! If you die you will go to Hell. Therefore endeavour to keep alive. But if you go to Hell that place cannot be hotter than this place, and we are not told that we shall there suffer from fever. Consequently be not afraid of dying. File out there! They grinned, and went.
It will be long ere the Khusru Kheyl forget their night attack on the lowland villages. The Mullah had promised an easy victory and unlimited plunder; but behold, armed troopers of the Queen had risen out of the very earth, cutting, slashing, and riding down under the stars, so that no man knew where to turn, and all feared that they had brought an army about their ears, and ran back to the hills. In the panic of that flight more men were seen to drop from wounds inflicted by an Afghan knife jabbed upwards, and yet more from long-range carbine-fire. Then there rose a cry of treachery, and when they reached their own guarded heights, they had left, with some forty dead and sixty wounded, all their confidence in the Blind Mullah on the plains below. They clamoured, swore, and argued round the fires; the women wailing for the lost, and the Mullah shrieking curses on the returned.
Then Khoda Dad Khan, eloquent and un-breathed, for he had taken no part in the fight, rose to improve the occasion. He pointed out that the tribe owed every item of its present misfortune to the Blind Mullah, who had lied in every possible particular and talked them into a trap. It was undoubtedly an insult that a Bengali, the son of a Bengali, should presume to administer the Border, but that fact did not, as the Mullah pretended, herald a general time of license and lifting; and the inexplicable madness of the English had not in the least impaired their power of guarding their marches. On the contrary, the baffled and out-generalled tribe would now, just when their food-stock was lowest, be blockaded from any trade with Hindustan until they had sent hostages for good behaviour, paid compensation for disturbance, and blood-money at the rate of thirty-six English pounds per head for every villager that they might have slain. And ye know that those lowland dogs will make oath that we have slain scores. Will the Mullah pay the fines or must we sell our guns? A low growl ran round the fires. Now, seeing that all this is the Mullahs work, and that we have gained nothing but promises of Paradise thereby, it is in my heart that we of the Khusru Kheyl lack a shrine whereat to pray. We are weakened, and henceforth how shall we dare to cross into the Madar Kheyl border, as has been our custom, to kneel to Pir Sajjis tomb? The Madar men will fall upon us, and rightly. But our Mullah is a holy man. He has helped two score of us into Paradise this night. Let him therefore accompany his flock, and we will build over his body a dome of the blue tiles of Mooltan, and burn lamps at his feet every Friday night. He shall be a saint: we shall have a shrine: and there our women shall pray for fresh seed to fill the gaps in our fighting-tale. How think you?
A grim chuckle followed the suggestion, and the soft wheep, wheep of unscabbarded knives followed the chuckle. It was an excellent notion, and met a long felt want of the tribe. The Mullah sprang to his feet, glaring with withered eyeballs at the drawn death he could not see, and calling down the curses of God and Mahomed on the tribe. Then began a game of blind mans buff round and between the fires, whereof Khuruk Shah, the tribal poet, has sung in verse that will not die.
They tickled him gently under the armpit with the knife-point. He leaped aside screaming, only to feel a cold blade drawn lightly over the back of his neck, or a rifle-muzzle rubbing his beard. He called on his adherents to aid him, but most of these lay dead on the plains, for Khoda Dad Khan had been at some pains to arrange their decease. Men described to him the glories of the shrine they would build, and the little children clapping their hands cried, Run, Mullah, run! Theres a man behind you! In the end, when the sport wearied, Khoda Dad Khans brother sent a knife home between his ribs. Wherefore, said Khoda Dad Khan with charming simplicity, I am now Chief of the Khusru Kheyl! No man gainsaid him; and they all went to sleep very stiff and sore.
On the plain below Tommy Dodd was lecturing on the beauties of a cavalry charge by night, and Tallantire, bowed on his saddle, was gasping hysterically because there was a sword dangling from his wrist flecked with the blood of the Khusru Kheyl, the tribe that Orde had kept in leash so well. When a Rajpoot trooper pointed out that the skewbalds right ear had been taken off at the root by some blind slash of its unskilled rider, Tallantire broke down altogether, and laughed and sobbed till Tommy Dodd made him lie down and rest.
We must wait about till the morning, said he. I wired to the Colonel just before we left, to send a wing of the Beshaklis after us. Hell be furious with me for monopolising the fun, though. Those beggars in the hills wont give us any more trouble.
Then tell the Beshaklis to go on and see what has happened to Curbar on the canal. We must patrol the whole line of the Border. Youre quite sure, Tommy, thatthat stuff waswas only the skewbalds ear?
Oh, quite, said Tommy. You just missed cutting off his head. I saw you when we went into the mess. Sleep, old man.
Noon brought two squadrons of Beshaklis and a knot of furious brother officers demanding the court-martial of Tommy Dodd for spoiling the picnic, and a gallop across country to the canal-works where Ferris, Curbar, and Hugonin were haranguing the terror-stricken coolies on the enormity of abandoning good work and high pay, merely because half a dozen of their fellows had been cut down. The sight of a troop of the Beshaklis restored wavering confidence, and the police-hunted section of the Khusru Kheyl had the joy of watching the canal-bank humming with life as usual, while such of their men as had taken refuge in the water-courses and ravines were being driven out by the troopers. By sundown began the remorseless patrol of the Border by police and trooper, most like the cow-boys eternal ride round restless cattle.
Now, said Khoda Dad Khan to his fellows, pointing out a line of twinkling fires below, ye may see how far the old order changes. After their horse will come the little devil-guns that they can drag up to the tops of the hills, and, for aught I know, to the clouds when we crown the hills. If the tribe-council thinks good, I will go to Tallantire Sahibwho loves meand see if I can stave off at least the blockade. Do I speak for the tribe?
Ay, speak for the tribe in Gods name. How those accursed fires wink! Do the English send their troops on the wireor is this the work of the Bengali?
As Khoda Dad Khan went down the hill he was delayed by an interview with a hard-pressed tribesman, which caused him to return hastily for something he had forgotten. Then, handing himself over to the two troopers who had been chasing his friend, he claimed escort to Tallantire Sahib, then with Bullows at Jumala. The Border was safe, and the time for reasons in writing had begun.
Thank Heaven! said Bullows, that the trouble came at once. Of course we can never put down the reason in black and white, but all India will understand. And it is better to have a sharp short outbreak than five years of impotent administration inside the Border. It costs less. Grish Chunder Dé has reported himself sick, and has been transferred to his own province without any sort of reprimand. He was strong on not having taken over the district.
Of course, said Tallantire bitterly. Well, what am I supposed to have done that was wrong?
Oh, you will be told that you exceeded all your powers, and should have reported, and written, and advised for three weeks until the Khusru Kheyl could really come down in force. But I dont think the authorities will dare to make a fuss about it. Theyve had their lesson. Have you seen Curbars version of the affair? He cant write a report, but he can speak the truth.
Whats the use of the truth? Hed much better tear up the report. Im sick and heartbroken over it all. It was so utterly unnecessaryexcept in that it rid us of that Babu.
Entered unabashed Khoda Dad Khan, a stuffed forage-net in his hand, and the troopers behind him.
May you never be tired! said he cheerily. Well, Sahibs, that was a good fight, and Naim Shahs mother is in debt to you, Tallantire Sahib. A clean cut, they tell me, through jaw, wadded coat, and deep into the collarbone. Well done! But I speak for the tribe. There has been a faulta great fault. Thou knowest that I and mine, Tallantire Sahib, kept the oath we sware to Orde Sahib on the banks of the Indus.
As an Afghan keeps his knifesharp on one side, blunt on the other, said Tallantire.
The better swing in the blow, then. But I speak Gods truth. Only the Blind Mullah carried the young men on the tip of his tongue, and said that there was no more Border-law because a Bengali had been sent, and we need not fear the English at all. So they came down to avenge that insult and get plunder. Ye know what befell, and how far I helped. Now five score of us are dead or wounded, and we are all shamed and sorry, and desire no further war. Moreover, that ye may better listen to us, we have taken off the head of the Blind Mullah, whose evil counsels have led us to folly. I bring it for proof,and he heaved on the floor the head. He will give no more trouble, for I am chief now, and so I sit in a higher place at all audiences. Yet there is an offset to this head. That was another fault. One of the man found that black Bengali beast, through whom this trouble arose, wandering on horseback and weeping. Reflecting that he had caused loss of much good life, Alla Dad Khan, whom, if you choose, I will to-morrow shoot, whipped off this head, and I bring it to you to cover your shame, that ye may bury it. See, no man kept the spectacles, though they were of gold.
Slowly rolled to Tallantires feet the crop-haired head of a spectacled Bengali gentleman, open-eyed, open-mouthedthe head of Terror incarnate. Bullows bent down. Yet another blood-fine and a heavy one, Khoda Dad Khan, for this is the head of Debendra Nath, the mans brother. The Babu is safe long since. All but the fools of the Khusru Kheyl know that.
Well, I care not for carrion. Quick meat for me. The thing was under our hills asking the road to Jumala, and Alla Dad Khan showed him the road to Jehannum, being, as thou sayest, but a fool. Remains now what the Government will do to us. As to the blockade
Who art thou, seller of dogs flesh, thundered Tallantire, to speak of terms and treaties? Get hence to the hillsgo, and wait there starving, till it shall please the Government to call thy people out for punishmentchildren and fools that ye be! Count your dead, and be still. Rest assured that the Government will send you a man!
Ay, returned Khoda Dad Khan, for we also be men.
As he looked Tallantire between the eyes, he added, And by Good, Sahib, may thou be that man!
BUT if it be a girl?
Lord of my life, it cannot be. I have prayed for so many nights, and sent gifts to Sheikh Badls shrine so often, that I know God will give us a sona man-child that shall grow into a man. Think of this and be glad. My mother shall be his mother till I can take him again, and the mullah of the Pattan mosque shall cast his nativityGod send he be born in an auspicious hour!and then, and then thou wilt never weary of me, thy slave.
Since when hast thou been a slave, my queen?
Since the beginningtill this mercy came to me. How could I be sure of thy love when I knew that I had been bought with silver?
Nay, that was the dowry. I paid it to thy mother.
And she has buried it, and sits upon it all day long like a hen. What talk is yours of dower! I was bought as though I had been a Lucknow dancing-girl instead of a child.
Art thou sorry for the sale?
I have sorrowed; but to-day I am glad. Thou wilt never cease to love me now?answer, my king.
Nevernever. No.
Not even though the mem-logthe white women of thy own bloodlove thee? And remember, I have watched them driving in the evening; they are very fair.
I have seen fire-balloons by the hundred. I have seen the moon, andthen I saw no more fire-balloons.
Ameera clapped her hands and laughed. Very good talk, she said. Then with an assumption of great statelines, It is enough. Thou hast my permission to depart,if thou wilt.
The man did not move. He was sitting on a low red-lacquered couch in a room furnished only with a blue and white floor-cloth, some rugs, and a very complete collection of native cushions. At his feet sat a woman of sixteen, and she was all but all the world in his eyes. By every rule and law she should have been otherwise, for he was an Englishman, and she a Mussulmans daughter bought two years before from her mother, who, being left without money, would have sold Ameera shrieking to the Prince of Darkness if the price had been sufficient.
It was a contract entered into with a light heart; but even before the girl had reached her bloom she came to fill the greater portion of John Holdens life. For her, and the withered hag her mother, he had taken a little house overlooking the great red-walled city, and found,when the marigolds had sprung up by the well in the court-yard, and Ameera had established herself according to her own ideas of comfort, and her mother had ceased grumbling at the inadequacy of the cooking-places, the distance from the daily market, and at matters of house-keeping in general,that the house was to him his home. Any one could enter his bachelors bungalow by day or night, and the life that he led there was an unlovely one. In the house in the city his feet only could pass beyond the outer courtyard to the womens rooms; and when the big wooden gate was bolted behind him he was king in his own territory, with Ameera for queen. And there was going to be added to this kingdom a third person whose arrival Holden felt inclined to resent. It interfered with his perfect happiness. It disarranged the orderly peace of the house that was his own. But Ameera was wild with delight at the thought of it, and her mother not less so. The love of a man, and particularly a white man, was at the best an inconstant affair, but it might, both women argued, be held fast by a babys hands. And then, Ameera would always say, then he will never care for the white mem-log. I hate them allI hate them all.
He will go back to his own people in time, said the mother; but by the blessing of God that time is yet afar off.
Holden sat silent on the couch thinking of the future, and his thoughts were not pleasant. The drawbacks of a double life are manifold. The Government, with singular care, had ordered him out of the station for a fortnight on special duty in the place of a man who was watching by the bedside of a sick wife. The verbal notification of the transfer had been edged by a cheerful remark that Holden ought to think himself lucky in being a bachelor and a free man. He came to break the news to Ameera.
It is not good, she said slowly, but it is not all bad. There is my mother here, and no harm will come to meunless indeed I die of pure joy. Go thou to thy work and think no troublesome thoughts. When the days are done I believe nay, I am sure. Andand then I shall lay him in thy arms, and thou wilt love me for ever. The train goes to-night, at midnight is it not? Go now, and do not let thy heart be heavy by cause of me. But thou wilt not delay in returning? Thou wilt not stay on the road to talk to the bold white mem-log. Come back to me swiftly, my life.
As he left the courtyard to reach his horse that was tethered to the gate-post, Holden spoke to the white-haired old watchman who guarded the house, and bade him under certain contingencies despatch the filled-up telegraph-form that Holden gave him. It was all that could be done, and with the sensations of a man who has attended his own funeral Holden went away by the night mail to his exile. Every hour of the day he dreaded the arrival of the telegram, and every hour of the night he pictured to himself the death of Ameera. In consequence his work for the State was not of first-rate quality, nor was his temper towards his colleagues of the most amiable. The fortnight ended without a sign from his home, and, torn to pieces by his anxieties, Holden returned to be swallowed up for two precious hours by a dinner at the club, wherein he heard, as a man hears in a swoon, voices telling him how execrably he had performed the other mans duties, and how he had endeared himself to all his associates. Then he fled on horseback through the night with his heart in his mouth. There was no answer at first to his blows on the gate, and he had just wheeled his horse round to kick it in when Pir Khan appeared with a lantern and held his stirrup.
Has aught occurred? said Holden.
The news does not come from my mouth, Protector of the Poor, but He held out his shaking hand as befitted the bearer of good news who is entitled to a reward.
Holden hurried through the courtyard. A light burned in the upper room. His horse neighed in the gateway, and he heard a shrill little wail that sent all the blood into the apple of his throat. It was a new voice, but it did not prove that Ameera was alive.
Who is there? he called up the narrow brick staircase.
There was a cry of delight from Ameera, and then the voice of the mother, tremulous with old age and prideWe be two women andthemanthyson.
On the threshold of the room Holden stepped on a naked dagger, that was laid there to avert ill-luck, and it broke at the hilt under his impatient heel.
God is great! cooed Ameera in the half-light. Thou hast taken his misfortunes on thy head.
Ay, but how is it with thee, life of my life? Old woman, how is it with her?
She has forgotten her sufferings for joy that the child is born. There is no harm; but speak softly, said the mother.
It only needed thy presence to make me all well, said Ameera. My king, thou hast been very long away. What gifts hast thou for me? Ah, ah! It is I that bring gifts this time. Look, my life, look. Was there ever such a babe? Nay, I am too weak even to clear my arm from him.
Rest then, and do not talk. I am here, bachari [little woman].
Well said, for there is a bond and a heel-rope [peecharee] between us now that nothing can break. Lookcanst thou see in this light? He is without spot or blemish. Never was such a man-child. Ya illah! he shall be a punditno, a trooper of the Queen. And, my life, dost thou love me as well as ever, though I am faint and sick and worn? Answer truly.
Yea. I love as I have loved, with all my soul. Lie still, pearl, and rest.
Then do not go. Sit by my side hereso. Mother, the lord of this house needs a cushion. Bring it. There was an almost imperceptible movement on the part of the new life that lay in the hollow of Ameeras arm. Aho! she said, her voice breaking with love. The babe is a champion from his birth. He is kicking me in the side with mighty kicks. Was there ever such a babe! And he is ours to usthine and mine. Put thy hand on his head, but carefully, for he is very young, and men are unskilled in such matters.
Very cautiously Holden touched with the tips of his fingers the downy head.
He is of the Faith, said Ameera; for lying here in the night-watches I whispered the call to prayer and the profession of faith into his ears. And it is most marvellous that he was born upon a Friday, as I was born. Be careful of him, my life; but he can almost grip with his hands.
Holden found one helpless little hand that closed feebly on his finger. And the clutch ran through his body till it settled about his heart. Till then his sole thought had been for Ameera. He began to realise that there was some one else in the world, but he could not feel that it was a veritable son with a soul. He sat down to think, and Ameera dozed lightly.
Get hence, sahib, said her mother under her breath. It is not good that she should find you here on waking. She must be still.
I go, said Holden submissively. Here be rupees. See that my baba gets fat and finds all that he needs.
The chink of the silver roused Ameera. I am his mother, and no hireling, she said weakly. Shall I look to him more or less for the sake of money? Mother, give it back. I have borne my lord a son.
The deep sleep of weakness came upon her almost before the sentence was completed. Holden went down to the courtyard very softly with his heart at ease. Pir Khan, the old watchman, was chuckling with delight. This house is now complete, he said, and without further comment thrust into Holdens hands the hilt of a sabre worn many years ago when he, Pir Khan, served the Queen in the police. The bleat of a tethered goat came from the well-kerb.
There be two, said Pir Khan, two goats of the best. I bought them, and they cost much money; and since there is no birth-party assembled their flesh will be all mine. Strike craftily, sahib! Tis an ill-balanced sabre at the best. Wait till they raise their heads from cropping the marigolds.
And why? said Holden, bewildered.
For the birth-sacrifice. What else? Otherwise the child being unguarded from fate may die. The Protector of the Poor knows the fitting words to be said.
Holden had learned them once with little thought that he would ever speak them in earnest. The touch of the cold sabre-hilt in his palm turned suddenly to the clinging grip of the child up-stairsthe child that was his own sonand a dread of loss filled him.
Strike! said Pir Khan. Never life came into the world but life was paid for it. See, the goats have raised their heads. Now! With a drawing cut!
Hardly knowing what he did, Holden cut twice as he muttered the Mahomedan prayer that runs: Almighty! In place of this my son I offer life for life, blood for blood, head for head, bone for bone, hair for hair, skin for skin. The waiting horse snorted and bounded in his pickets at the smell of the raw blood that spirted over Holdens riding-boots.
Well smitten! said Pir Khan wiping the sabre. A swordsman was lost in thee. Go with a light heart, Heaven-born. I am thy servant, and the servant of thy son. May the Presence live a thousand years and the flesh of the goats is all mine? Pir Khan drew back richer by a months pay. Holden swung himself into the saddle and rode off through the low-hanging wood-smoke of the evening. He was full of riotous exultation, alternating with a vast vague tenderness directed towards no particular object, that made him choke as he bent over the neck of his uneasy horse. I never felt like this in my life, he thought. Ill go to the club and pull myself together.
A game of pool was beginning, and the room was full of men. Holden entered, eager to get to the light and the company of his fellows, singing at the top of his voice
In Baltimore a-walking, a lady I did meet! |
Did you? said the club-secretary from his corner. Did she happen to tell you that your boots were wringing wet? Great goodness, man, its blood!
Bosh! said Holden, picking his cue from the rack. May I cut in? Its dew. Ive been riding through high crops. My faith! my boots are in a mess though!
And if it be a girl she shall wear a wedding-ring, And if it be a boy he shall fight for his king, With his dirk, and his cap, and his little jacket blue, He shall walk the quarter-deck |
Yellow on bluegreen next player, said the marker monotonously.
He shall walk the quarter-deck,Am I green, marker? He shall walk the quarter-deck,eh! thats a bad shot,As his daddy used to do!
I dont see that you have anything to crow about, said a zealous junior civilian acidly. The Government is not exactly pleased with your work when you relieved Sanders.
Does that mean a wigging from headquarters? said Holden with an abstracted smile. I think I can stand it.
The talk beat up round the ever-fresh subject of each mans work, and steadied Holden till it was time to go to his dark empty bungalow, where his butler received him as one who knew all his affairs. Holden remained awake for the greater part of the night, and his dreams were pleasant ones.
How old is he now?
Ya illah! What a mans question! He is all but six weeks old; and on this night I go up to the house-top with thee, my life, to count the stars. For that is auspicious. And he was born on a Friday under the sign of the Sun, and it has been told to me that he will outlive us both and get wealth. Can we wish for aught better, be-loved?
There is nothing better. Let us go up to the roof, and thou shalt count the starsbut a few only, for the sky is heavy with cloud.
The winter rains are late, and maybe they come out of season. Come, before all the stars are hid. I have put on my richest jewels.
Thou hast forgotten the best of all.
Ai! Ours. He comes also. He has never yet seen the skies.
Ameera climbed the narrow staircase that led to the flat roof. The child, placid and unwinking, lay in the hollow of her right arm, gorgeous in silver-fringed muslin with a small skull-cap on his head. Ameera wore all that she valued most. The diamond nose-stud that takes the place of the Western patch in drawing attention to the curve of the nostril, the gold ornament in the centre of the forehead studded with tallow-drop emeralds and flawed rubies, the heavy circlet of beaten gold that was fastened round her neck by the softness of the pure metal, and the chinking curb-patterned silver anklets hanging low over the rosy ankle-bone. She was dressed in jade-green muslin as befitted a daughter of the Faith, and from shoulder to elbow and elbow to wrist ran bracelets of silver tied with floss silk, frail glass bangles slipped over the wrist in proof of the slenderness of the hand, and certain heavy gold bracelets that had no part in her countrys ornaments, but, since they were Holdens gift and fastened with a cunning European snap, delighted her immensely.
They sat down by the low white parapet of the roof, overlooking the city and its lights.
They are happy down there, said Ameera. But I do not think that they are as happy as we. Nor do I think the white mem-log are as happy. And thou?
I know they are not.
How dost thou know?
They give their children over to the nurses.
I have never seen that, said Ameera with a sigh, nor do I wish to see. Ahi!she dropped her head on Holdens shoulder,I have counted forty stars, and I am tired. Look at the child, love of my life, he is counting too.
The baby was staring with round eyes at the dark of the heavens. Ameera placed him in Holdens arms, and he lay there without a cry.
What shall we call him among ourselves? she said. Look! Art thou ever tired of looking? He carries thy very eyes. But the mouth
Is thine, most dear. Who should know better than I?
Tis such a feeble mouth. Oh, so small! And yet it holds my heart between its lips. Give him to me now. He has been too long away.
Nay, let him lie; he has not yet begun to cry.
When he cries thou wilt give him backeh? What a man of mankind thou art! If he cried he were only the dearer to me. But, my life, what little name shall we give him?
The small body lay close to Holdens heart. It was utterly helpless and very soft. He scarcely dared to breathe for fear of crushing it. The caged green parrot that is regarded as a sort of guardian-spirit in most native households moved on its perch and fluttered a drowsy wing.
There is the answer, said Holden. Mian Mittu has spoken. He shall be the parrot. When he is ready he will talk mightily and run about. Mian Mittu is the parrot in thyin the Mussulman tongue, is it not?
Why put me so far off? said Ameera fretfully. Let it be like unto some English namebut not wholly. For he is mine.
Then call him Tota, for that is likest English.
Ay, Tota, and that is still the parrot. Forgive me, my lord, for a minute ago, but in truth he is too little to wear all the weight of Mian Mittu for name. He shall be Totaour Tota to us. Hearest thou, oh, small one? Littlest, thou art Tota. She touched the childs cheek, and he waking wailed, and it was necessary to return him to his mother, who soothed him with the wonderful rhyme of Aré koko, Faré koko! which says
Oh crow! Go crow! Babys sleeping sound, And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound. Only a penny a pound, baba, only a penny a pound. |
Reassured many times as to the price of those plums, Tota cuddled himself down to sleep. The two sleek, white well-bullocks in the courtyard were steadily chewing the cud of their evening meal; old Pir Khan squatted at the head of Holdens horse, his police sabre across his knees, pulling drowsily at a big water-pipe that croaked like a bull-frog in a pond. Ameeras mother sat spinning in the lower verandah, and the wooden gate was shut and barred. The music of a marriage-procession came to the roof above the gentle hum of the city, and a string of flying-foxes crossed the face of the low moon.
I have prayed, said Ameera after a long pause, I have prayed for two things. First, that I may die in thy stead if thy death is demanded, and in the second, that I may die in the place of the child. I have prayed to the Prophet and to Beebee Miriam. Thinkest thou either will hear?
From thy lips who would not hear the lightest word?
I asked for straight talk, and thou hast given me sweet talk. Will my prayers be heard?
How can I say? God is very good.
Of that I am not sure. Listen now. When I die, or the child dies, what is thy fate? Living, thou wilt return to the bold white mem-log, for kind calls to kind.
Not always.
With a woman, no; with a man it is otherwise. Thou wilt in this life, later on, go back to thine own folk. That I could almost endure, for I should be dead. But in thy very death thou wilt be taken away to a strange place and a paradise that I do not know.
Will it be paradise?
Surely, for who would harm thee? But we twoI and the childshall be elsewhere, and we cannot come to thee, nor canst thou come to us. In the old days, before the child was born, I did not think of these things; but now I think of them always. It is very hard talk.
It will fall as it will fall. To-morrow we do not know, but to-day and love we know well. Surely we are happy now.
So happy that it were well to make our happiness assured. And thy Beebee Miriam should listen to me; for she is also a woman. But then she would envy me! It is not seemly for men to worship a woman.
Holden laughed aloud at Ameeras little spasm of jealousy.
Is it not seemly? Why didst thou not turn me from worship of thee, then?
Thou a worshipper! And of me? My king, for all thy sweet words, well I know that I am thy servant and thy slave, and the dust under thy feet. And I would not have it otherwise. See!
Before Holden could prevent her she stooped forward and touched his feet; recovering herself with a little laugh hugged Tota closer to her bosom. Then, almost savagely
Is it true that the bold white mem-log live for three times the length of my life? Is it true that they make their marriages not before they are old women?
They marry as do otherswhen they are women.
That I know, but they wed when they are twenty-five. Is that true?
That is true.
Ya illah! At twenty-five! Who would of his own will take a wife even of eighteen? She is a womanaging every hour. Twenty-five! I shall be an old woman at that age, andThose mem-log remain young for ever. How I hate them!
What have they to do with us?
I cannot tell. I know only that there may now be alive on this earth a woman ten years older than I who may come to thee and take thy love ten years after I am an old woman, gray-headed, and the nurse of Totas son. That is unjust and evil. They should die too.
Now, for all thy years thou art a child, and shalt be picked up and carried down the staircase.
Tota! Have a care for Tota, my lord! Thou at least art as foolish as any babe! Ameera tucked Tota out of harms way in the hollow of her neck, and was carried downstairs laughing in Holdens arms, while Tota opened his eyes and smiled after the manner of the lesser angels.
He was a silent infant, and, almost before Holden could realise that he was in the world, developed into a small gold-coloured little god and unquestioned despot of the house overlooking the city. Those were months of absolute happiness to Holden and Ameerahappiness withdrawn from the world, shut in behind the wooden gate that Pir Khan guarded. By day Holden did his work with an immense pity for such as were not so fortunate as himself, and a sympathy for small children that amazed and amused many mothers at the little station-gatherings. At nightfall he returned to Ameera,Ameera, full of the wondrous doings of Tota; how he had been seen to clap his hands together and move his fingers with intention and purposewhich was manifestly a miraclehow later, he had of his own initiative crawled out of his low bedstead on to the floor and swayed on both feet for the space of three breaths.
And they were long breaths, for my heart stood still with delight, said Ameera.
Then Tota took the beasts into his councilsthe well-bullocks, the little gray squirrels, the mongoose that lived in a hole near the well, and especially Mian Mittu, the parrot, whose tail he grievously pulled, and Mian Mittu screamed till Ameera and Holden arrived.
Oh villain! Child of strength! This to thy brother on the house-top! Tobah, tobah! Fie! Fie! But I know a charm to make him wise as Suleiman and Aflatoun. Now look, said Ameera. She drew from an embroidered bag a handful of almonds. See! we count seven. In the name of God!
She placed Mian Mittu, very angry and rumpled, on the top of his cage, and seating herself between the babe and the bird she cracked and peeled an almond less white than her teeth. This is a true charm, my life, and do not laugh. See! I give the parrot one-half and Tota the other. Mian Mittu with careful beak took his share from between Ameeras lips, and she kissed the other half into the mouth of the child, who ate it slowly with wondering eyes. This I will do each day of seven, and without doubt he who is ours will be a bold speaker and wise. Eh, Tota, what wilt thou be when thou art a man and I am gray-headed? Tota tucked his fat legs into adorable creases. He could crawl, but he was not going to waste the spring of his youth in idle speech. He wanted Mian Mittus tail to tweak.
When he was advanced to the dignity of a silver beltwhich, with a magic square engraved on silver and hung round his neck, made up the greater part of his clothinghe staggered on a perilous journey down the garden to Pir Khan, and proffered him all his jewels in exchange for one little ride on Holdens horse, having seen his mothers mother chaffering with pedlars in the verandah. Pir Khan wept and set the untried feet on his own gray head in sign of fealty, and brought the bold adventurer to his mothers arms, vowing that Tota would be a leader of men ere his beard was grown.
One hot evening, while he sat on the roof between his father and mother watching the never ending warfare of the kites that the city boys flew, he demanded a kite of his own with Pir Khan to fly it, because he had a fear of dealing with anything larger than himself, and when Holden called him a spark, he rose to his feet and answered slowly in defence of his new-found individuality, Humpark nahin hai. Hum admi hai [I am no spark, but a man.]
The protest made Holden choke and devote himself very seriously to a consideration of Totas future. He need hardly have taken the trouble. The delight of that life was too perfect to endure. Therefore it was taken away as many things are taken away in Indiasuddenly and without warning. The little lord of the house, as Pir Khan called him, grew sorrowful and complained of pains who had never known the meaning of pain. Ameera, wild with terror, watched him through the night, and in the dawning of the second day the life was shaken out of him by feverthe seasonal autumn fever. It seemed altogether impossible that he could die, and neither Ameera nor Holden at first believed the evidence of the little body on the bedstead. Then Ameera beat her head against the wall and would have flung herself down the well in the garden had Holden not restrained her by main force.
One mercy only was granted to Holden. He rode to his office in broad daylight and found waiting him an unusually heavy mail that demanded concentrated attention and hard work. He was not, however, alive to this kindness of the gods.
The first shock of a bullet is no more than a brisk pinch. The wrecked body does not send in its protest to the soul till ten or fifteen seconds later. Holden realised his pain slowly, exactly as he had realised his happiness, and with the same imperious necessity for hiding all trace of it. In the beginning he only felt that there had been a loss, and that Ameera needed comforting, where she sat with her head on her knees shivering as Mian Mittu from the house-top called, Tota! Tota! Tota! Later all his world and the daily life of it rose up to hurt him. It was an outrage that any one of the children at the band-stand in the evening should be alive and clamorous, when his own child lay dead. It was more than mere pain when one of them touched him, and stories told by over-fond fathers of their childrens latest performances cut him to the quick. He could not declare his pain. He had neither help, comfort, nor sympathy; and Ameera at the end of each weary day would lead him through the hell of self-questioning reproach which is reserved for those who have lost a child, and believe that with a littlejust a little more careit might have been saved.
Perhaps, Ameera would say, I did not take sufficient heed. Did I, or did I not? The sun on the roof that day when he played so long alone and I wasahi! braiding my hairit may be that the sun then bred the fever. If I had warned him from the sun he might have lived. But, oh my life, say that I am guiltless! Thou knowest that I loved him as I love thee. Say that there is no blame on me, or I shall dieI shall die!
There is no blame,before God, none. It was written, and how could we do aught to save? What has been, has been. Let it go, beloved.
He was all my heart to me. How can I let the thought go when my arm tells me every night that he is not here? Ahi! Ahi! Oh, Tota, come back to mecome back again, and let us be all together as it was before!
Peace, peace! For thine own sake, and for mine also, if thou lovest merest.
By this I know thou dost not care; and how shouldst thou? The white men have hearts of stone and souls of iron. Oh, that I had married a man of mine own peoplethough he beat meand had never eaten the bread of an alien!
Am I an alienmother of my son?
What elseSahib? Oh, forgive meforgive! The death has driven me mad. Thou art the life of my heart, and the light of my eyes, and the breath of my life, andand I have put thee from me, though it was but for a moment. If thou goest away, to whom shall I look for help? Do not be angry. Indeed, it was the pain that spoke and not thy slave.
I know, I know. We be two who were three. The greater need therefore that we should be one.
They were sitting on the roof as of custom. The night was a warm one in early spring, and sheet-lightning was dancing on the horizon to a broken tune played by far-off thunder. Ameera settled herself in Holdens arms.
The dry earth is lowing like a cow for the rain, and II am afraid. It was not like this when we counted the stars. But thou lovest me as much as before, though a bond is taken away? Answer!
I love more because a new bond has come out of the sorrow that we have eaten together, and that thou knowest.
Yea, I knew, said Ameera in a very small whisper. But it is good to hear thee say so, my life, who art so strong to help. I will be a child no more, but a woman and an aid to thee. Listen! Give me my sitar and I will sing bravely.
She took the light silver-studded sitar and began a song of the great hero Rajah Rasalu. The hand failed on the strings, the tune halted, checked, and at a low note turned off to the poor little nursery- rhyme about the wicked crow
And the wild plums grow in the jungle, only a penny a pound. Only a penny a pound, babaonly |
Then came the tears, and the piteous rebellion against fate till she slept, moaning a little in her sleep, with the right arm thrown clear of the body as though it protected something that was not there. It was after this night that life became a little easier for Holden. The ever-present pain of loss drove him into his work, and the work repaid him by filling up his mind for nine or ten hours a day. Ameera sat alone in the house and brooded, but grew happier when she understood that Holden was more at ease, according to the custom of women. They touched happiness again, but this time with caution.
It was because we loved Tota that he died. The jealousy of God was upon us, said Ameera. I have hung up a large black jar before our window to turn the evil eye from us, and we must make no protestations of delight, but go softly underneath the stars, lest God find us out. Is that not good talk, worthless one?
She had shifted the accent on the word that means beloved, in proof of the sincerity of her purpose. But the kiss that followed the new christening was a thing that any deity might have envied. They went about henceforward saying, It is naught, it is naught; and hoping that all the Powers heard.
The Powers were busy on other things. They had allowed thirty million people four years of plenty, wherein men fed well and the crops were certain, and the birth-rate rose year by year; the districts reported a purely agricultural population varying from nine hundred to two thousand to the square mile of the overburdened earth; and the Member for Lower Tooting, wandering about India in top-hat and frock-coat, talked largely of the benefits of British rule, and suggested as the one thing needful the establishment of a duly qualified electoral system and a general bestowal of the franchise. His long-suffering hosts smiled and made him welcome, and when he paused to admire, with pretty picked words, the blossom of the blood-red dhak-tree that had flowered untimely for a sign of what was coming, they smiled more than ever.
It was the Deputy Commissioner of Kot-Kumharsen, staying at the club for a day, who lightly told a tale that made Holdens blood run cold as he overheard the end.
He wont bother any one any more. Never saw a man so astonished in my life. By Jove, I thought he meant to ask a question in the House about it. Fellow-passenger in his shipdined next himbowled over by cholera and died in eighteen hours. You neednt laugh, you fellows. The Member for Lower Tooting is awfully angry about it; but hes more scared. I think hes going to take his enlightened self out of India.
Id give a good deal if he were knocked over. It might keep a few vestrymen of his kidney to their own parish. But whats this about cholera? Its full early for anything of that kind, said the warden of an unprofitable salt-lick.
Dont know, said the Deputy Commissioner reflectively. Weve got locusts with us. Theres sporadic cholera all along the northat least were calling it sporadic for decencys sake. The spring crops are short in five districts, and nobody seems to know where the rains are. Its nearly March now. I dont want to scare anybody, but it seems to me that Natures going to audit her accounts with a big red pencil this summer.
Just when I wanted to take leave, too! said a voice across the room.
There wont be much leave this year, but there ought to be a great deal of promotion. Ive come in to persuade the Government to put my pet canal on the list of famine-relief works. Its an ill-wind that blows no good. I shall get that canal finished at last.
Is it the old programme then, said Holden; famine, fever, and cholera?
Oh no. Only local scarcity and an unusual prevalence of seasonal sickness. Youll find it all in the reports if you live till next year. Youre a lucky chap. You havent got a wife to send out of harms way. The hill-stations ought to be full of women this year.
I think youre inclined to exaggerate the talk in the bazars, said a young civilian in the Secretariat. Now I have observed
I daresay you have, said the Deputy Commissioner, but youve a great deal more to observe, my son. In the meantime, I wish to observe to you and he drew him aside to discuss the construction of the canal that was so dear to his heart. Holden went to his bungalow and began to understand that he was not alone in the world, and also that he was afraid for the sake of another,which is the most soul-satisfying fear known to man.
Two months later, as the Deputy had foretold, Nature began to audit her accounts with a red pencil. On the heels of the spring-reapings came a cry for bread, and the Government, which had decreed that no man should die of want, sent wheat. Then came the cholera from all four quarters of the compass. It struck a pilgrim-gathering of half a million at a sacred shrine. Many died at the feet of their god; the others broke and ran over the face of the land carrying the pestilence with them. It smote a walled city and killed two hundred a day. The people crowded the trains, hanging on to the footboards and squatting on the roofs of the carriages, and the cholera followed them, for at each station they dragged out the dead and the dying. They died by the roadside, and the horses of the Englishmen shied at the corpses in the grass. The rains did not come, and the earth turned to iron lest man should escape death by hiding in her. The English sent their wives away to the hills and went about their work, coming forward as they were bidden to fill the gaps in the fighting-line. Holden, sick with fear of losing his chiefest treasure on earth, had done his best to persuade Ameera to go away with her mother to the Himalayas.
Why should I go? said she one evening on the roof.
There is sickness, and people are dying, and all the white mem-log have gone.
All of them?
Allunless perhaps there remain some old scald-head who vexes her husbands heart by running risk of death.
Nay; who stays is my sister, and thou must not abuse her, for I will be a scald-head too. I am glad all the bold mem-log are gone.
Do I speak to a woman or a babe? Go to the hills, and I will see to it that thou goest like a queens daughter. Think, child. In a red-lacquered bullock cart, veiled and curtained, with brass peacocks upon the pole and red cloth hangings. I will send two orderlies for guard and
Peace! Thou art the babe in speaking thus. What use are those toys to me? He would have patted the bullocks and played with the housings. For his sake, perhaps,thou hast made me very EnglishI might have gone. Now, I will not. Let the mem-log run.
Their husbands are sending them, beloved.
Very good talk. Since when hast thou been my husband to tell me what to do? I have but borne thee a son. Thou art only all the desire of my soul to me. How shall I depart when I know that if evil befall thee by the breadth of so much as my littlest finger-nailis that not small?I should be aware of it though I were in paradise. And here, this summer thou mayest dieai, janee, die! and in dying they might call to tend thee a white woman, and she would rob me in the last of thy love!
But love is not born in a moment or on a death-bed!
What dost thou know of love, stoneheart? She would take thy thanks at least and, by God and the Prophet and Beebee Miriam the mother of thy Prophet, that I will never endure. My lord and my love, let there be no more foolish talk of going away. Where thou art, I am. It is enough. She put an arm round his neck and a hand on his mouth.
There are not many happinesses so complete as those that are snatched under the shadow of the sword. They sat together and laughed, calling each other openly by every pet name that could move the wrath of the gods. The city below them was locked up in its own torments. Sulphur fires blazed in the streets; the conches in the Hindu temples screamed and bellowed, for the gods were inattentive in those days. There was a service in the great Mahomedan shrine, and the call to prayer from the minarets was almost unceasing. They heard the wailing in the houses of the dead, and once the shriek of a mother who had lost a child and was calling for its return. In the gray dawn they saw the dead borne out through the city gates, each litter with its own little knot of mourners. Wherefore they kissed each other and shivered.
It was a red and heavy audit, for the land was very sick and needed a little breathing-space ere the torrent of cheap life should flood it anew. The children of immature fathers and undeveloped mothers made no resistance. They were cowed and sat still, waiting till the sword should be sheathed in November if it were so willed. There were gaps among the English, but the gaps were filled. The work of superintending famine-relief, cholera-sheds, medicine-distribution, and what little sanitation was possible, went forward because it was so ordered.
Holden had been told to keep himself in readiness to move to replace the next man who should fall. There were twelve hours in each day when he could not see Ameera, and she might die in three. He was considering what his pain would be if he could not see her for three months, or if she died out of his sight. He was absolutely certain that her death would be demandedso certain, that when he looked up from the telegram and saw Pir Khan breathless in the doorway, he laughed aloud. And? said he,
When there is a cry in the night and the spirit flutters into the throat, who has a charm that will restore? Come swiftly, Heaven-born! It is the black cholera.
Holden galloped to his home. The sky was heavy with clouds, for the long-deferred rains were near and the heat was stifling. Ameeras mother met him in the courtyard, whimpering, She is dying. She is nursing herself into death. She is all but dead. What shall I do, sahib?
Ameera was lying in the room in which Tota had been born. She made no sign when Holden entered, because the human soul is a very lonely thing and, when it is getting ready to go away, hides itself in a misty borderland where the living may not follow. The black cholera does its work quietly and without explanation. Ameera was being thrust out of life as though the Angel of Death had himself put his hand upon her. The quick breathing seemed to show that she was either afraid or in pain, but neither eyes nor mouth gave any answer to Holdens kisses. There was nothing to be said or done. Holden could only wait and suffer. The first drops of the rain began to fall on the roof and he could hear shouts of joy in the parched city.
The soul came back a little and the lips moved. Holden bent down to listen. Keep nothing of mine, said Ameera. Take no hair from my head. She would make thee burn it later on. That flame I should feel. Lower! Stoop lower! Remember only that I was thine and bore thee a son. Though thou wed a white woman to-morrow, the pleasure of receiving in thy arms thy first son is taken from thee for ever. Remember me when thy son is bornthe one that shall carry thy name before all men. His misfortunes be on my head. I bear witnessI bear witnessthe lips were forming the words on his earthat there is no God butthee, beloved!
Then she died. Holden sat still, and all thought was taken from him,till he heard Ameeras mother lift the curtain.
Is she dead, sahib?
She is dead.
Then I will mourn, and afterwards take an inventory of the furniture in this house. For that will be mine. The sahib does not mean to resume it? It is so little, so very little, sahib, and I am an old woman. I would like to lie softly.
For the mercy of God be silent a while. Go out and mourn where I cannot hear.
Sahib, she will be buried in four hours.
I know the custom. I shall go ere she is taken away. That matter is in thy hands. Look to it, that the bed on whichon which she lies
Aha! That beautiful red-lacquered bed. I have long desired
That the bed is left here untouched for my disposal. All else in the house is thine. Hire a cart, take everything, go hence, and before sunrise let there be nothing in this house but that which I have ordered thee to respect.
I am an old woman. I would stay at least for the days of mourning, and the rains have just broken. Whither shall I go?
What is that to me? My order is that there is a going. The house-gear is worth a thousand rupees and my orderly shall bring thee a hundred rupees to-night.
That is very little. Think of the cart-hire.
It shall be nothing unless thou goest, and with speed. O woman, get hence and leave me with my dead!
The mother shuffled down the staircase, and in her anxiety to take stock of the house-fittings forgot to mourn. Holden stayed by Ameeras side and the rain roared on the roof. He could not think connectedly by reason of the noise, though he made many attempts to do so. Then four sheeted ghosts glided dripping into the room and stared at him through their veils. They were the washers of the dead. Holden left the room and went out to his horse. He had come in a dead, stifling calm through ankle-deep dust. He found the courtyard a rain-lashed pond alive with frogs; a torrent of yellow water ran under the gate, and a roaring wind drove the bolts of the rain like buckshot against the mud-walls. Pir Khan was shivering in his little hut by the gate, and the horse was stamping uneasily in the water.
I have been told the sahibs order, said Pir Khan. It is well. This house is now desolate. I go also, for my monkey-face would be a reminder of that which has been. Concerning the bed, I will bring that to thy house yonder in the morning; but remember, sahib, it will be to thee a knife turning in a green wound. I go upon a pilgrimage, and I will take no money. I have grown fat in the protection of the Presence whose sorrow is my sorrow. For the last time I hold his stirrup.
He touched Holdens foot with both hands and the horse sprang out into the road, where the creaking bamboos were whipping the sky and all the frogs were chuckling. Holden could not see for the rain in his face. He put his hands before his eyes and muttered
Oh you brute! You utter brute!
The news of his trouble was already in his bungalow. He read the knowledge in his butlers eyes when Ahmed Khan brought in food, and for the first and last time in his life laid a hand upon his masters shoulder, saying, Eat, sahib, eat. Meat is good against sorrow. I also have known. Moreover the shadows come and go, sahib; the shadows come and go. These be curried eggs.
Holden could neither eat nor sleep. The heavens sent down eight inches of rain in that night and washed the earth clean. The waters tore down walls, broke roads, and scoured open the shallow graves on the Mahomedan burying-ground. All next day it rained, and Holden sat still in his house considering his sorrow. On the morning of the third day he received a telegram which said only, Ricketts, Myndonie. Dying. Holden relieve. Immediate. Then he thought that before he departed he would look at the house wherein he had been master and lord. There was a break in the weather, and the rank earth steamed with vapour.
He found that the rains had torn down the mud pillars of the gateway, and the heavy wooden gate that had guarded his life hung lazily from one hinge. There was grass three inches high in the courtyard; Pir Khans lodge was empty, and the sodden thatch sagged between the beams. A gray squirrel was in possession of the verandah, as if the house had been untenanted for thirty years instead of three days. Ameeras mother had removed everything except some mildewed matting. The tick-tick of the little scorpions as they hurried across the floor was the only sound in the house. Ameeras room and the other one where Tota had lived were heavy with mildew; and the narrow staircase leading to the roof was streaked and stained with rain-borne mud. Holden saw all these things, and came out again to meet in the road Durga Dass, his landlord,portly, affable, clothed in white muslin, and driving a Cee-spring buggy. He was overlooking his property to see how the roofs stood the stress of the first rains.
I have heard, said he, you will not take this place any more, sahib?
What are you going to do with it?
Perhaps I shall let it again.
Then I will keep it on while I am away.
Durga Dass was silent for some time. You shall not take it on, sahib, he said. When I was a young man I also, but to-day I am a member of the Municipality. Ho! Ho! No. When the birds have gone what need to keep the nest? I will have it pulled downthe timber will sell for something always. It shall be pulled down, and the Municipality shall make a road across, as they desire, from the burning-ghaut to the city wall, so that no man may say where this house stood.
From time to time clouds of tawny dust rose from the ground without wind or warning, flung themselves tablecloth-wise among the tops of the parched trees, and came down again. Then a-whirling dust-devil would scutter across the plain for a couple of miles, break, and fall outward, though there was nothing to check its flight save a long low line of piled railway-sleepers white with the dust, a cluster of huts made of mud, condemned rails, and canvas, and the one squat four-roomed bungalow that belonged to the assistant engineer in charge of a section of the Gaudhari State line then under construction.
The four, stripped to the thinnest of sleeping-suits, played whist crossly, with wranglings as to leads and returns. It was not the best kind of whist, but they had taken some trouble to arrive at it. Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert since the night before; Lowndes of the Civil Service, on special duty in the political department, had come as far to escape for an instant the miserable intrigues of an impoverished native State whose king alternately fawned and blustered for more money from the pitiful revenues contributed by hard-wrung peasants and despairing camel-breeders; Spurstow, the doctor of the line, had left a cholera-stricken camp of coolies to look after itself for forty-eight hours while he associated with white men once more. Hummil, the assistant engineer, was the host. He stood fast and received his friends thus every Sunday if they could come in. When one of them failed to appear, he would send a telegram to his last address, in order that he might know whether the defaulter were dead or alive. There are very many places in the East where it is not good or kind to let your acquaintances drop out of sight even for one short week.
The players were not conscious of any special regard for each other. They squabbled whenever they met; but they ardently desired to meet, as men without water desire to drink. They were lonely folk who understood the dread meaning of loneliness. They were all under thirty years of agewhich is too soon for any man to possess that knowledge.
Pilsener? said Spurstow, after the second rubber, mopping his forehead.
Beers out, Im sorry to say, and theres hardly enough soda-water for tonight, said Hummil.
What filthy bad management! Spurstow snarled.
Cant help it. Ive written and wired; but the trains dont come through regularly yet. Last week the ice ran outas Lowndes knows.
Glad I didnt come. I could ha sent you some if I had known, though. Phew! its too hot to go on playing bumblepuppy. This with a savage scowl at Lowndes, who only laughed. He was a hardened offender.
Mottram rose from the table and looked out of a chink in the shutters.
What a sweet day! said he.
The company yawned all together and betook themselves to an aimless investigation of all Hummils possessionsguns, tattered novels, saddlery, spurs, and the like. They had fingered them a score of times before, but there was really nothing else to do.
Got anything fresh? said Lowndes.
Last weeks Gazette of India, and a cutting from a home paper. My father sent it out. Its rather amusing.
One of those vestrymen that call emselves M.P.s again, is it? said Spurstow, who read his newspapers when he could get them.
Yes. Listen to this. Its to your address, Lowndes. The man was making a speech to his constituents, and he piled it on. Heres a sample, And I assert unhesitatingly that the Civil Service in India is the preservethe pet preserveof the aristocracy of England. What does the democracywhat do the massesget from that country, which we have step by step fraudulently annexed? I answer, nothing whatever. It is farmed with a single eye to their own interests by the scions of the aristocracy. They take good care to maintain their lavish scale of incomes, to avoid or stifle any inquiries into the nature and conduct of their administration, while they themselves force the unhappy peasant to pay with the sweat of his brow for all the luxuries in which they are lapped. Hummil waved the cutting above his head. Ear! ear! said his audience.
Then Lowndes, meditatively, Id giveId give three months pay to have that gentleman spend one month with me and see how the free and independent native prince works things. Old Timbersidesthis was his flippant title for an honoured and decorated feudatory princehas been wearing my life out this week past for money. By Jove, his latest performance was to send me one of his women as a bribe!
Good for you! Did you accept it? said Mottram.
No. I rather wish I had, now. She was a pretty little person, and she yarned away to me about the horrible destitution among the kings women-folk. The darlings havent had any new clothes for nearly a month, and the old man wants to buy a new drag from Calcuttasolid silver railings and silver lamps, and trifles of that kind. Ive tried to make him understand that he has played the deuce with the revenues for the last twenty years and must go slow. He cant see it.
But he has the ancestral treasure-vaults to draw on. There must be three millions at least in jewels and coin under his palace, said Hummil.
Catch a native king disturbing the family treasure! The priests forbid it except as the last resort. Old Timbersides has added something like a quarter of a million to the deposit in his reign.
Where the mischief does it all come from? said Mottram.
The country. The state of the people is enough to make you sick. Ive known the taxmen wait by a milch-camel till the foal was born and then hurry off the mother for arrears. And what can I do? I cant get the court clerks to give me any accounts; I cant raise anything more than a fat smile from the commander-in-chief when I find out the troops are three months in arrears; and old Timbersides begins to weep when I speak to him. He has taken to the Kings Peg heavily, liqueur brandy for whisky, and Heidsieck for soda-water.
Thats what the Rao of Jubela took to. Even a native cant last long at that, said Spurstow. Hell go out.
And a good thing, too. Then I suppose well have a council of regency, and a tutor for the young prince, and hand him back his kingdom with ten years accumulations.
Whereupon that young prince, having been taught all the vices of the English, will play ducks and drakes with the money and undo ten years work in eighteen months. Ive seen that business before, said Spurstow. I should tackle the king with a light hand if I were you, Lowndes. Theyll hate you quite enough under any circumstances.
Thats all very well. The man who looks on can talk about the light hand; but you cant clean a pig-sty with a pen dipped in rose-water. I know my risks; but nothing has happened yet. My servants an old Pathan, and he cooks for me. They are hardly likely to bribe him, and I dont accept food from my true friends, as they call themselves. Oh, but its weary work! Id sooner be with you, Spurstow. Theres shooting near your camp.
Would you? I dont think it. About fifteen deaths a day dont incite a man to shoot anything but himself. And the worst of it is that the poor devils look at you as though you ought to save them. Lord knows, Ive tried everything. My last attempt was empirical, but it pulled an old man through. He was brought to me apparently past hope, and I gave him gin and Worcester sauce with cayenne. It cured him; but I dont recommend it.
How do the cases run generally? said Hummil.
Very simply indeed. Chlorodyne, opium pill, chlorodyne, collapse, nitre, bricks to the feet, and thenthe burning-ghaut. The last seems to be the only thing that stops the trouble. Its black cholera, you know. Poor devils! But, I will say, little Bunsee Lal, my apothecary, works like a demon. Ive recommended him for promotion if he comes through it all alive.
And what are your chances, old man? said Mottram.
Dont know; dont care much; but Ive sent the letter in. What are you doing with yourself generally?
Sitting under a table in the tent and spitting on the sextant to keep it cool, said the man of the survey. Washing my eyes to avoid ophthalmia, which I shall certainly get, and trying to make a sub-surveyor understand that an error of five degrees in an angle isnt quite so small as it looks. Im altogether alone, y know, and shall be till the end of the hot weather.
Hummils the lucky man, said Lowndes, flinging himself into a long chair. He has an actual roof-torn as to the ceiling-cloth, but still a roof-over his head. He sees one train daily. He can get beer and soda-water and ice em when God is good. He has books, picturesthey were torn from the Graphicand the society of the excellent sub-contractor Jevins, besides the pleasure of receiving us weekly.
Hummil smiled grimly. Yes, Im the lucky man, I suppose. Jevins is luckier.
How? Not
Yes. Went out. Last Monday.
By his own hand? said Spurstow quickly, hinting the suspicion that was in everybodys mind. There was no cholera near Hummils section. Even fever gives a man at least a weeks grace, and sudden death generally implied self-slaughter.
I judge no man this weather, said Hummil. He had a touch of the sun, I fancy; for last week, after you fellows had left, he came into the verandah and told me that he was going home to see his wife, in Market Street, Liverpool, that evening.
I got the apothecary in to look at him, and we tried to make him lie down. After an hour or two he rubbed his eyes and said he believed he had had a fit, hoped he hadnt said anything rude. Jevins had a great idea of bettering himself socially. He was very like Chucks in his language.
Well?
Then he went to his own bungalow and began cleaning a rifle. He told the servant that he was going to shoot buck in the morning. Naturally he fumbled with the trigger, and shot himself through the headaccidentally. The apothecary sent in a report to my chief; and Jevins is buried somewhere out there. Id have wired to you, Spurstow, if you could have done anything.
Youre a queer chap, said Mottram. If youd killed the man yourself you couldnt have been more quiet about the business.
Good Lord! what does it matter? said Hummil calmly. Ive got to do a lot of his overseeing work in addition to my own. Im the only person that suffers. Jevins is out of it, by pure accident, of course, but out of it. The apothecary was going to write a long screed on suicide. Trust a babu to drivel when he gets the chance.
Why didnt you let it go in as suicide? said Lowndes.
No direct proof. A man hasnt many privileges in his country, but he might at least be allowed to mishandle his own rifle. Besides, some day I may need a man to smother up an accident to myself. Live and let live. Die and let die.
You take a pill, said Spurstow, who had been watching Hummils white face narrowly. Take a pill, and dont be an ass. That sort of talk is skittles. Anyhow, suicide is shirking your work. If I were Job ten times over, I should be so interested in what was going to happen next that Id stay on and watch.
Ah! Ive lost that curiosity, said Hummil.
Liver out of order? said Lowndes feelingly.
No. Cant sleep. Thats worse.
By Jove, it is! said Mottram. Im that way every now and then, and the fit has to wear itself out. What do you take for it?
Nothing. Whats the use? I havent had ten minutes sleep since Friday morning.
Poor chap! Spurstow, you ought to attend to this, said Mottram. Now you mention it, your eyes are rather gummy and swollen.
Spurstow, still watching Hummil, laughed lightly. Ill patch him up, later on. Is it too hot, do you think, to go for a ride?
Where to? said Lowndes wearily. We shall have to go away at eight, and therell be riding enough for us then. I hate a horse when I have to use him as a necessity. Oh, heavens! what is there to do?
Begin whist again, at chick points [a chick is supposed to be eight shillings] and a gold mohur on the rub, said Spurstow promptly.
Poker. A months pay all round for the poolno limitand fifty-rupee raises. Somebody would be broken before we got up, said Lowndes.
Cant say that it would give me any pleasure to break any man in this company, said Mottram. There isnt enough excitement in it, and its foolish. He crossed over to the worn and battered little camp-pianowreckage of a married household that had once held the bungalowand opened the case.
Its used up long ago, said Hummil. The servants have picked it to pieces.
The piano was indeed hopelessly out of order, but Mottram managed to bring the rebellious notes into a sort of agreement, and there rose from the ragged keyboard something that might once have been the ghost of a popular music-hall song. The men in the long chairs turned with evident interest as Mottram banged the more lustily.
Thats good! said Lowndes. By Jove! the last time I heard that song was in 79, or thereabouts, just before I came out.
Ah! said Spurstow with pride, I was home in 80. And he mentioned a song of the streets popular at that date.
Mottram executed it roughly. Lowndes criticized and volunteered emendations. Mottram dashed into another ditty, not of the music-hall character, and made as if to rise.
Sit down, said Hummil. I didnt know that you had any music in your composition. Go on playing until you cant think of anything more. Ill have that piano tuned up before you come again. Play something festive.
Very simple indeed were the tunes to which Mottrams art and the limitations of the piano could give effect, but the men listened with pleasure, and in the pauses talked all together of what they had seen or heard when they were last at home. A dense dust-storm sprung up outside, and swept roaring over the house, enveloping it in the choking darkness of midnight, but Mottram continued unheeding, and the crazy tinkle reached the ears of the listeners above the flapping of the tattered ceiling-cloth.
In the silence after the storm he glided from the more directly personal songs of Scotland, half humming them as he played, into the Evening Hymn.
Sunday, said he, nodding his head.
Go on. Dont apologize for it, said Spurstow.
Hummil laughed long and riotously. Play it, by all means. Youre full of surprises today. I didnt know you had such a gift of finished sarcasm. How does that thing go?
Mottram took up the tune.
Too slow by half. You miss the note of gratitude, said Hummil. It ought to go to the Grasshoppers Polkathis way. And he chanted, prestissimo,
Glory to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light.
That shows we really feel our blessings. How does it go on?
If in the night I sleepless lie, My soul with sacred thoughts supply; May no ill dreams disturb my rest,
Quicker, Mottram!
Or powers of darkness me molest!
Bah! what an old hypocrite you are!
Dont be an ass, said Lowndes. You are at full liberty to make fun of anything else you like, but leave that hymn alone. Its associated in my mind with the most sacred recollections
Summer evenings in the country, stained-glass window, light going out, and you and she jamming your heads together over one hymnbook, said Mottram.
Yes, and a fat old cockchafer hitting you in the eye when you walked home. Smell of hay, and a moon as big as a bandbox sitting on the top of a haycock; bats, roses, milk and midges, said Lowndes.
Also mothers. I can just recollect my mother singing me to sleep with that when I was a little chap, said Spurstow.
The darkness had fallen on the room. They could hear Hummil squirming in his chair.
Consequently, said he testily, you sing it when you are seven fathom deep in Hell! Its an insult to the intelligence of the Deity to pretend were anything but tortured rebels.
Take two pills, said Spurstow; thats tortured liver.
The usually placid Hummil is in a vile bad temper. Im sorry for his coolies tomorrow, said Lowndes, as the servants brought in the lights and prepared the table for dinner.
As they were settling into their places about the miserable goat-chops, and the smoked tapioca pudding, Spurstow took occasion to whisper to Mottram, Well done, David!
Look after Saul, then, was the reply.
What are you two whispering about? said Hummil suspiciously.
Only saying that you are a damned poor host. This fowl cant be cut, returned Spurstow with a sweet smile. Call this a dinner?
I cant help it. You dont expect a banquet, do you?
Throughout that meal Hummil contrived laboriously to insult directly and pointedly all his guests in succession, and at each insult Spurstow kicked the aggrieved persons under the table; but he dared not exchange a glance of intelligence with either of them. Hummils face was white and pinched, while his eyes were unnaturally large. No man dreamed for a moment of resenting his savage personalities, but as soon as the meal was over they made haste to get away.
Dont go. Youre just getting amusing, you fellows. I hope I havent said anything that annoyed you. Youre such touchy devils. Then, changing the note into one of almost abject entreaty, Hummil added, I say, you surely arent going?
In the language of the blessed Jorrocks, where I dines I sleeps, said Spurstow. I want to have a look at your coolies tomorrow, if you dont mind. You can give me a place to lie down in, I suppose?
The others pleaded the urgency of their several duties next day, and, saddling up, departed together, Hummil begging them to come next Sunday. As they jogged off, Lowndes unbosomed himself to Mottram
. . . And I never felt so like kicking a man at his own table in my life. He said I cheated at whist, and reminded me I was in debt! Told you you were as good as a liar to your face! You arent half indignant enough over it.
Not I, said Mottram. Poor devil! Did you ever know old Hummy behave like that before or within a hundred miles of it?
Thats no excuse. Spurstow was hacking my shin all the time, so I kept a hand on myself. Else I should have
No, you wouldnt. Youd have done as Hummy did about Jevins; judge no man this weather. By Jove! the buckle of my bridle is hot in my hand! Trot out a bit, and ware rat-holes. Ten minutes trotting jerked out of Lowndes one very sage remark when he pulled up, sweating from every pore
Good thing Spurstows with him tonight.
Ye-es. Good man, Spurstow. Our roads turn here. See you again next Sunday, if the sun doesnt bowl me over.
Spose so, unless old Timbersides finance minister manages to dress some of my food. Goodnight, andGod bless you!
Whats wrong now?
Oh, nothing. Lowndes gathered up his whip, and, as he flicked Mottrams mare on the flank, added, Youre not a bad little chap, thats all. And the mare bolted half a mile across the sand, on the word.
In the assistant engineers bungalow Spurstow and Hummil smoked the pipe of silence together, each narrowly watching the other. The capacity of a bachelors establishment is as elastic as its arrangements are simple. A servant cleared away the dining-room table, brought in a couple of rude native bedsteads made of tape strung on a light wood frame, flung a square of cool Calcutta matting over each, set them side by side, pinned two towels to the punkah so that their fringes should just sweep clear of the sleepers nose and mouth, and announced that the couches were ready.
The men flung themselves down, ordering the punkah-coolies by all the powers of Hell to pull. Every door and window was shut, for the outside air was that of an oven. The atmosphere within was only 104 degrees, as the thermometer bore witness, and heavy with the foul smell of badly-trimmed kerosene lamps; and this stench, combined with that of native tobacco, baked brick, and dried earth, sends the heart of many a strong man down to his boots, for it is the smell of the Great Indian Empire when she turns herself for six months into a house of torment. Spurstow packed his pillows craftily so that he reclined rather than lay, his head at a safe elevation above his feet. It is not good to sleep on a low pillow in the hot weather if you happen to be of thick-necked build, for you may pass with lively snores and gugglings from natural sleep into the deep slumber of heat-apoplexy.
Pack your pillows, said the doctor sharply, as he saw Hummil preparing to lie down at full length.
The night-light was trimmed; the shadow of the punkah wavered across the room, and the flick of the punkah-towel and the soft whine of the rope through the wall-hole followed it. Then the punkah flagged, almost ceased. The sweat poured from Spurstows brow. Should he go out and harangue the coolie? It started forward again with a savage jerk, and a pin came out of the towels. When this was replaced, a tomtom in the coolie-lines began to beat with the steady throb of a swollen artery inside some brain-fevered skull. Spurstow turned on his side and swore gently. There was no movement on Hummils part. The man had composed himself as rigidly as a corpse, his hands clinched at his sides. The respiration was too hurried for any suspicion of sleep. Spurstow looked at the set face. The jaws were clinched, and there was a pucker round the quivering eyelids.
Hes holding himself as tightly as ever he can, thought Spurstow. What in the world is the matter with him?Hummil!
Yes, in a thick constrained voice.
Cant you get to sleep?
No.
Head hot? Throat feeling bulgy? or how?
Neither, thanks. I dont sleep much, you know.
Feel pretty bad?
Pretty bad, thanks. There is a tomtom outside, isnt there? I thought it was my head at first.... Oh, Spurstow, for pitys sake give me something that will put me asleep, sound asleep, if its only for six hours! He sprang up, trembling from head to foot. I havent been able to sleep naturally for days, and I cant stand it! I cant stand it!
Poor old chap!
Thats no use. Give me something to make me sleep. I tell you Im nearly mad. I dont know what I say half my time. For three weeks Ive had to think and spell out every word that has come through my lips before I dared say it. Isnt that enough to drive a man mad? I cant see things correctly now, and Ive lost my sense of touch. My skin achesmy skin aches! Make me sleep. Oh, Spurstow, for the love of God make me sleep sound. It isnt enough merely to let me dream. Let me sleep!
All right, old man, all right. Go slow; you arent half as bad as you think.
The flood-gates of reserve once broken, Hummil was clinging to him like a frightened child. Youre pinching my arm to pieces.
Ill break your neck if you dont do something for me. No, I didnt mean that. Dont be angry, old fellow. He wiped the sweat off himself as he fought to regain composure. Im a bit restless and off my oats, and perhaps you could recommend some sort of sleeping mixturebromide of potassium.
Bromide of skittles! Why didnt you tell me this before? Let go of my arm, and Ill see if theres anything in my cigarette-case to suit your complaint. Spurstow hunted among his day-clothes, turned up the lamp, opened a little silver cigarette-case, and advanced on the expectant Hummil with the daintiest of fairy squirts.
The last appeal of civilization, said he, and a thing I hate to use. Hold out your arm. Well, your sleeplessness hasnt ruined your muscle; and what a thick hide it is! Might as well inject a buffalo subcutaneously. Now in a few minutes the morphia will begin working. Lie down and wait.
A smile of unalloyed and idiotic delight began to creep over Hummils face. I think, he whispered,I think Im going off now. Gad! its positively heavenly! Spurstow, you must give me that case to keep; you The voice ceased as the head fell back.
Not for a good deal, said Spurstow to the unconscious form. And now, my friend, sleeplessness of your kind being very apt to relax the moral fibre in little matters of life and death, Ill just take the liberty of spiking your guns.
He paddled into Hummils saddle-room in his bare feet and uncased a twelve-bore rifle, an express, and a revolver. Of the first he unscrewed the nipples and hid them in the bottom of a saddlery-case; of the second he abstracted the lever, kicking it behind a big wardrobe. The third he merely opened, and knocked the doll-head bolt of the grip up with the heel of a riding-boot.
Thats settled, he said, as he shook the sweat off his hands. These little precautions will at least give you time to turn. You have too much sympathy with gun-room accidents.
And as he rose from his knees, the thick muffled voice of Hummil cried in the doorway, You fool!
Such tones they use who speak in the lucid intervals of delirium to their friends a little before they die.
Spurstow started, dropping the pistol. Hummil stood in the doorway, rocking with helpless laughter.
That was awfly good of you, Im sure, he said, very slowly, feeling for his words. I dont intend to go out by my own hand at present. I say, Spurstow, that stuff wont work. What shall I do? What shall I do? And panic terror stood in his eyes.
Lie down and give it a chance. Lie down at once.
I darent. It will only take me half-way again, and I shant be able to get away this time. Do you know it was all I could do to come out just now? Generally I am as quick as lightning; but you had clogged my feet. I was nearly caught.
Oh yes, I understand. Go and lie down.
No, it isnt delirium; but it was an awfully mean trick to play on me. Do you know I might have died?
As a sponge rubs a slate clean, so some power unknown to Spurstow had wiped out of Hummils face all that stamped it for the face of a man, and he stood at the doorway in the expression of his lost innocence. He had slept back into terrified childhood.
Is he going to die on the spot? thought Spurstow. Then, aloud, All right, my son. Come back to bed, and tell me all about it. You couldnt sleep; but what was all the rest of the nonsense?
A place, a place down there, said Hummil, with simple sincerity. The drug was acting on him by waves, and he was flung from the fear of a strong man to the fright of a child as his nerves gathered sense or were dulled.
Good God! Ive been afraid of it for months past, Spurstow. It has made every night hell to me; and yet Im not conscious of having done anything wrong.
Be still, and Ill give you another dose. Well stop your nightmares, you unutterable idiot!
Yes, but you must give me so much that I cant get away. You must make me quite sleepy, not just a little sleepy. Its so hard to run then.
I know it; I know it. Ive felt it myself. The symptoms are exactly as you describe.
Oh, dont laugh at me, confound you! Before this awful sleeplessness came to me Ive tried to rest on my elbow and put a spur in the bed to sting me when I fell back. Look!
By Jove! the man has been rowelled like a horse! Ridden by the nightmare with a vengeance! And we all thought him sensible enough. Heaven send us understanding! You like to talk, dont you?
Yes, sometimes. Not when Im frightened. Then I want to run. Dont you?
Always. Before I give you your second dose try to tell me exactly what your trouble is.
Hummil spoke in broken whispers for nearly ten minutes, whilst Spurstow looked into the pupils of his eyes and passed his hand before them once or twice.
At the end of the narrative the silver cigarette-case was produced, and the last words that Hummil said as he fell back for the second time were, Put me quite to sleep; for if Im caught I die, I die!
Yes, yes; we all do that sooner or later, thank Heaven who has set a term to our miseries, said Spurstow, settling the cushions under the head. It occurs to me that unless I drink something I shall go out before my time. Ive stopped sweating, andI wear a seventeen-inch collar. He brewed himself scalding hot tea, which is an excellent remedy against heat-apoplexy if you take three or four cups of it in time. Then he watched the sleeper.
A blind face that cries and cant wipe its eyes, a blind face that chases him down corridors! Hm! Decidedly, Hummil ought to go on leave as soon as possible; and, sane or otherwise, he undoubtedly did rowel himself most cruelly. Well, Heaven send us understanding!
At mid-day Hummil rose, with an evil taste in his mouth, but an unclouded eye and a joyful heart.
I was pretty bad last night, wasnt I? said he.
I have seen healthier men. You must have had a touch of the sun. Look here: if I write you a swinging medical certificate, will you apply for leave on the spot?
No.
Why not? You want it.
Yes, but I can hold on till the weathers a little cooler.
Why should you, if you can get relieved on the spot?
Burkett is the only man who could be sent; and hes a born fool.
Oh, never mind about the line. You arent so important as all that. Wire for leave, if necessary.
Hummil looked very uncomfortable.
I can hold on till the Rains, he said evasively.
You cant. Wire to headquarters for Burkett.
I wont. If you want to know why, particularly, Burkett is married, and his wifes just had a kid, and shes up at Simla, in the cool, and Burkett has a very nice billet that takes him into Simla from Saturday to Monday. That little woman isnt at all well. If Burkett was transferred shed try to follow him. If she left the baby behind shed fret herself to death. If she cameand Burketts one of those selfish little beasts who are always talking about a wifes place being with her husbandshed die. Its murder to bring a woman here just now. Burkett hasnt the physique of a rat. If he came here hed go out; and I know she hasnt any money, and Im pretty sure shed go out too. Im salted in a sort of way, and Im not married. Wait till the Rains, and then Burkett can get thin down here. Itll do him heaps of good.
Do you mean to say that you intend to facewhat you have faced, till the Rains break?
Oh, it wont be so bad, now youve shown me a way out of it. I can always wire to you. Besides, now Ive once got into the way of sleeping, itll be all right. Anyhow, I shant put in for leave. Thats the long and the short of it.
My great Scott! I thought all that sort of thing was dead and done with.
Bosh! Youd do the same yourself. I feel a new man, thanks to that cigarette-case. Youre going over to camp now, arent you?
Yes; but Ill try to look you up every other day, if I can.
Im not bad enough for that. I dont want you to bother. Give the coolies gin and ketchup.
Then you feel all right?
Fit to fight for my life, but not to stand out in the sun talking to you. Go along, old man, and bless you!
Hummil turned on his heel to face the echoing desolation of his bungalow, and the first thing he saw standing in the verandah was the figure of himself. He had met a similar apparition once before, when he was suffering from overwork and the strain of the hot weather.
This is badalready, he said, rubbing his eyes. If the thing slides away from me all in one piece, like a ghost, I shall know it is only my eyes and stomach that are out of order. If it walksmy head is going.
He approached the figure, which naturally kept at an unvarying distance from him, as is the use of all spectres that are born of overwork. It slid through the house and dissolved into swimming specks within the eyeball as soon as it reached the burning light of the garden. Hummil went about his business till even. When he came in to dinner he found himself sitting at the table. The vision rose and walked out hastily. Except that it cast no shadow it was in all respects real.
No living man knows what that week held for Hummil. An increase of the epidemic kept Spurstow in camp among the coolies, and all he could do was to telegraph to Mottram, bidding him go to the bungalow and sleep there. But Mottram was forty miles away from the nearest telegraph, and knew nothing of anything save the needs of the survey till he met, early on Sunday morning, Lowndes and Spurstow heading towards Hummils for the weekly gathering.
Hope the poor chaps in a better temper, said the former, swinging himself off his horse at the door. I suppose he isnt up yet.
Ill just have a look at him, said the doctor. If hes asleep theres no need to wake him.
And an instant later, by the tone of Spurstows voice calling upon them to enter, the men knew what had happened. There was no need to wake him.
The punkah was still being pulled over the bed, but Hummil had departed this life at least three hours.
The body lay on its back, hands clinched by the side, as Spurstow had seen it lying seven nights previously. In the staring eyes was written terror beyond the expression of any pen.
Mottram, who had entered behind Lowndes, bent over the dead and touched the forehead lightly with his lips. Oh, you lucky, lucky devil! he whispered.
But Lowndes had seen the eyes, and withdrew shuddering to the other side of the room.
Poor chap! poor old chap! And the last time I met him I was angry. Spurstow, we should have watched him. Has he?
Deftly Spurstow continued his investigations, ending by a search round the room.
No, he hasnt, he snapped. Theres no trace of anything. Call the servants.
They came, eight or ten of them, whispering and peering over each others shoulders.
When did your Sahib go to bed? said Spurstow.
At eleven or ten, we think, said Hummils personal servant.
He was well then? But how should you know?
He was not ill, as far as our comprehension extended. But he had slept very little for three nights. This I know, because I saw him walking much, and specially in the heart of the night.
As Spurstow was arranging the sheet, a big straight-necked hunting-spur tumbled on the ground. The doctor groaned. The personal servant peeped at the body.
What do you think, Chuma? said Spurstow, catching the look on the dark face.
Heaven-born, in my poor opinion, this that was my master has descended into the Dark Places, and there has been caught because he was not able to escape with sufficient speed. We have the spur for evidence that he fought with Fear. Thus have I seen men of my race do with thorns when a spell was laid upon them to overtake them in their sleeping hours and they dared not sleep.
Chuma, youre a mud-head. Go out and prepare seals to be set on the Sahibs property.
God has made the Heaven-born. God has made me. Who are we, to enquire into the dispensations of God? I will bid the other servants hold aloof while you are reckoning the tale of the Sahibs property. They are all thieves, and would steal.
As far as I can make out, he died fromoh, anything; stoppage of the hearts action, heat-apoplexy, or some other visitation, said Spurstow to his companions. We must make an inventory of his effects, and so on.
He was scared to death, insisted Lowndes. Look at those eyes! For pitys sake dont let him be buried with them open!
Whatever it was, hes clear of all the trouble now, said Mottram softly.
Spurstow was peering into the open eyes.
Come here, said he. Can you see anything there?
I cant face it! whimpered Lowndes. Cover up the face! Is there any fear on earth that can turn a man into that likeness? Its ghastly. Oh, Spurstow, cover it up!
No fearon earth, said Spurstow. Mottram leaned over his shoulder and looked intently.
I see nothing except some grey blurs in the pupil. There can be nothing there, you know.
Even so. Well, lets think. Itll take half a day to knock up any sort of coffin; and he must have died at midnight. Lowndes, old man, go out and tell the coolies to break ground next to Jevinss grave. Mottram, go round the house with Chuma and see that the seals are put on things. Send a couple of men to me here, and Ill arrange.
The strong-armed servants when they returned to their own kind told a strange story of the doctor Sahib vainly trying to call their master back to life by magic artsto wit, the holding of a little green box that clicked to each of the dead mans eyes, and of a bewildered muttering on the part of the doctor Sahib, who took the little green box away with him.
The resonant hammering of a coffin-lid is no pleasant thing to hear, but those who have experience maintain that much more terrible is the soft swish of the bed-linen, the reeving and unreeving of the bed-tapes, when he who has fallen by the roadside is apparelled for burial, sinking gradually as the tapes are tied over, till the swaddled shape touches the floor and there is no protest against the indignity of hasty disposal.
At the last moment Lowndes was seized with scruples of conscience. Ought you to read the service, from beginning to end? said he to Spurstow.
I intend to. Youre my senior as a civilian. You can take it if you like.
I didnt mean that for a moment. I only thought if we could get a chaplain from somewhere, Im willing to ride anywhere, and give poor Hummil a better chance. Thats all.
Bosh! said Spurstow, as he framed his lips to the tremendous words that stand at the head of the burial service.
After breakfast they smoked a pipe in silence to the memory of the dead. Then Spurstow said absently
Tisnt medical science.
What?
Things in a dead mans eye.
For goodness sake leave that horror alone! said Lowndes. Ive seen a native die of pure fright when a tiger chivied him. I know what killed Hummil.
The deuce you do! Im going to try to see. And the doctor retreated into the bathroom with a Kodak camera. After a few minutes there was the sound of something being hammered to pieces, and he emerged, very white indeed.
Have you got a picture? said Mottram. What does the thing look like?
It was impossible, of course. You neednt look, Mottram. Ive torn up the films. There was nothing there. It was impossible.
That, said Lowndes, very distinctly, watching the shaking hand striving to relight the pipe, is a damned lie.
Mottram laughed uneasily. Spurstows right, he said. Were all in such a state now that wed believe anything. For pitys sake lets try to be rational.
There was no further speech for a long time. The hot wind whistled without, and the dry trees sobbed. Presently the daily train, winking brass, burnished steel, and spouting steam, pulled up panting in the intense glare. Wed better go on that, said Spurstow. Go back to work. Ive written my certificate. We cant do any more good here, and workll keep our wits together. Come on.
No one moved. It is not pleasant to face railway journeys at mid-day in June. Spurstow gathered up his hat and whip, and, turning in the doorway, said
There may be Heaventhere must be Hell.Meantime, there is our life here. We-ell?
Neither Mottram nor Lowndes had any answer to the question.
The Third Three conspired over whiskey cocktails and a clean sheet of note-paper against the British Empire and all that lay therein. This work is very like what men without discernment call politics before a general election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of congenial friends, all the weak points in your opponents organisation, and unconsciously dwell upon and exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a miracle that the hated party holds together for an hour.
Our principle is not so much active demonstrationthat we leave to othersas passive embarrassment, to weaken and unnerve, said the first man. Wherever an organisation is crippled, wherever confusion is thrown into any branch of any department, we gain a step for those who take on the work; we are but the forerunners. He was a German enthusiast, and editor of a newspaper, from whose leading articles he quoted frequently.
That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her own that unless we doubled the years average I guess it wouldnt strike her anything special had occurred, said the second man. Are you prepared to say that all our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in clear daylight? They can beat us at our own game. Better join hands with the practical branches; were in funds now. Try a direct scare in a crowded street. They value their greasy hides. He was the drag upon the wheel, and an Americanised Irishman of the second generation, despising his own race and hating the other. He had learned caution.
The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. He was the strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge of life was limited. He picked a letter from his breast-pocket and threw it across the table. That epistle to the heathen contained some very concise directions from the First Three in New York. It said
The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern markets, where our agents have been forcing down the English-held stock among the smaller buyers who watch the turn of shares. Any immediate operations, such as western bears, would increase their willingness to unload. This, however, cannot be expected till they see clearly that foreign iron-masters are willing to co-operate. Mulcahy should be dispatched to feel the pulse of the market, and act accordingly. Mavericks are at present the best for our purpose.P.D.Q.
As a message referring to an iron crisis in Pennsylvania, it was interesting, if not lucid. As a new departure in organized attack on an outlying English dependency, it was more than interesting.
The second man read it through and murmuredAlready? Surely they are in too great a hurry. All that Dhulip Singh could do in India he has done, down to the distribution of his photographs among the peasantry. Ho! Ho! The Paris firm arranged that, and he has no substantial money backing from the Other Power. Even our agents in India know he hasnt. What is the use of our organisation wasting men on work that is already done? Of course the Irish regiments in India are half mutinous as they stand.
This shows how near a lie may come to the truth. An Irish regiment, for just so long as it stands still, is generally a hard handful to control, being reckless and rough. When, however, it is moved in the direction of musketry-firing, it becomes strangely and unpatriotically content with its lot. It has even been heard to cheer the Queen with enthusiasm on these occasions.
But the notion of tampering with the army was, from the point of view of Tehama Street, an altogether sound one. There is no shadow of stability in the policy of an English Government, and the most sacred oaths of England would, even if engrossed on vellum, find very few buyers among colonies and dependencies that have suffered from vain beliefs. But there remains to England always her army. That cannot change except in the matter of uniform and equipment. The officers may write to the papers demanding the heads of the Horse Guards in default of cleaner redress for grievances; the men may break loose across a country town and seriously startle the publicans; but neither officers nor men have it in their composition to mutiny after the continental manner. The English people, when they trouble to think about the army at all, are, and with justice, absolutely assured that it is absolutely trustworthy. Imagine for a moment their emotions on realising that such and such a regiment was in open revolt from causes directly due to Englands management of Ireland. They would probably send the regiment to the polls forthwith and examine their own consciences as to their duty to Erin; but they would never be easy any more. And it was this vague, unhappy mistrust that the I.A.A. were labouring to produce.
Sheer waste of breath, said the second man after a pause in the council. I dont see the use of tampering with their fool-army, but it has been tried before and we must try it again. It looks well in the reports. If we send one man from here you may bet your life that other men are going too. Order up Mulcahy.
They ordered him upa slim, slight, dark-haired young man, devoured with that blind rancorous hatred of England that only reaches its full growth across the Atlantic. He had sucked it from his mothers breast in the little cabin at the back of the northern avenues of New York; he had been taught his rights and his wrongs, in German and Irish, on the canal fronts of Chicago; and San Francisco held men who told him strange and awful things of the great blind power over the seas. Once, when business took him across the Atlantic, he had served in an English regiment, and being insubordinate had suffered extremely. He drew all his ideas of England that were not bred by the cheaper patriotic prints from one iron-fisted colonel and an unbending adjutant. He would go to the mines if need be to teach his gospel. And he went, as his instructions advised, p.d.q.which means with speedto introduce embarrassment into an Irish regiment, already half-mutinous, quartered among Sikh peasantry, all wearing miniatures of His Highness Dhulip Singh, Maharaja of the Punjab, next their hearts, and all eagerly expecting his arrival. Other information equally valuable was given him by his masters. He was to be cautious, but never to grudge expense in winning the hearts of the men in the regiment. His mother in New York would supply funds, and he was to write to her once a month. Life is pleasant for a man who has a mother in New York to send him two hundred pounds a year over and above his regimental pay.
In process of time, thanks to his intimate knowledge of drill and musketry exercise, the excellent Mulcahy, wearing the corporals stripe, went out in a troopship and joined Her Majestys Royal Loyal Musketeers, commonly known as the Mavericks, because they were masterless and unbranded cattlesons of small farmers in County Clare, shoeless vagabonds of Kerry, herders of Ballyvegan, much wanted moonlighters from the bare rainy headlands of the south coast, officered by OMores, Bradys, Hills, Kilreas, and the like. Never to outward seeming was there more promising material to work on. The First Three had chosen their regiment well. It feared nothing that moved or talked save the colonel and the regimental Roman Catholic chaplain, the fat Father Dennis, who held the keys of heaven and hell, and blared like an angry bull when he desired to be convincing. Him also it loved because on occasions of stress he was used to tuck up his cassock and charge with the rest into the merriest of the fray, where he always found, good man, that the saints sent him a revolver when there was a fallen private to be protected, orbut this came as an afterthought his own gray head to be guarded.
Cautiously as he had been instructed, tenderly and with much beer, Mulcahy opened his projects to such as he deemed fittest to listen. And these were, one and all, of that quaint, crooked, sweet, profoundly irresponsible and profoundly lovable race that fight like fiends, argue like children, reason like women, obey like men, and jest like their own goblins of the rath through rebellion, loyalty, want, woe, or war. The underground work of a conspiracy is always dull and very much the same the world over. At the end of six monthsthe seed always falling on good groundMulcahy spoke almost explicitly, hinting darkly in the approved fashion at dread powers behind him, and advising nothing more nor less than mutiny. Were they not dogs, evilly treated? Had they not all their own and their national revenges to satisfy? Who in these days would do aught to nine hundred men in rebellion? Who, again, could stay them if they broke for the sea, licking up on their way other regiments only too anxious to join? And afterwards . . . here followed windy promises of gold and preferment, office and honour, ever dear to a certain type of Irishman.
As he finished his speech, in the dusk of a twilight, to his chosen associates, there was a sound of a rapidly unslung belt behind him. The arm of one Dan Grady flew out in the gloom and arrested something. Then said Dan
Mulcahy, youre a great man, an you do credit to whoever sent you. Walk about a bit while we think of it. Mulcahy departed elate. He knew his words would sink deep.
Why the triple-dashed asterisks did ye not let me belt him? grunted a voice.
Because Im not a fat-headed fool. Boys, Tis what hes been driving at these six monthsour superior corpril with his education and his copies of the Irish papers and his everlasting beer. Hes been sent for the purpose, and thats where the money comes from. Can ye not see? That mans a gold-mine, which Horse Egan here would have destroyed with a belt-buckle. It would be throwing away the gifts of Providence not to fall in with his little plans. Of coorse well mutny till alls dry. Shoot the colonel on the parade-ground, massacree the company officers, ransack the arsenal, and thenBoys, did he tell you what next? He told me the other night when he was beginning to talk wild. Then were to join with the niggers, and look for help from Dhulip Singh and the Russians!
And spoil the best campaign that ever was this side of Hell! Danny, Id have lost the beer to ha given him the belting he requires.
Oh, let him go this awhile, man! Hes got nono constructiveness, but thats the egg-meat of his plan, and you must understand that Im in with it, an so are you. Well want oceans of beer to convince usfirmaments full. Well give him talk for his money, and one by one all the boysll come in and hell have a nest of nine hundred mutineers to squat in an give drink to.
What makes me killing-mad is his wanting us to do what the niggers did thirty years gone. That an his pigs cheek in saying that other regiments would come along, said a Kerry man.
Thats not so bad as hintin we should loose off on the colonel.
Colonel be sugared! Id as soon as not put a shot through his helmet to see him jump and clutch his old horses head. But Mulcahy talks o shootin our compny orfcers accidental.
He said that, did he? said Horse Egan.
Somethin like that, anyways. Cant ye fancy ould Barber Brady wid a bullet in his lungs, coughin like a sick monkey, an sayin, Bhoys, I do not mind your gettin dhrunk, but you must hould your liquor like men. The man that shot me is dhrunk. Ill suspend investigations for six hours, while I get this bullet cut out, and then
An then, continued Horse Egan, for the peppery Majors peculiarities of speech and manner were as well known as his tanned face; an then, ye dissolute, half-baked, putty-faced scum o Connemara, if I find a man so much as lookin confused, begad, Ill coort-martial the whole company. A man that cant get over his liquor in six hours is not fit to belong to the Mavericks!
A shout of laughter bore witness to the truth of the sketch.
Its pretty to think of, said the Kerry man slowly. Mulcahy would have us do all the devilmint, and get clear himself, someways. He wudnt be takin all this fools throuble in shpoilin the reputation of the regimint
Reputation of your grandmothers pig! said Dan.
Well, an he had a good reputation tu; so its all right. Mulcahy must see his way to clear out behind him, or hed not ha come so far, talkin powers of darkness.
Did you hear anything of a regimental coortmartial among the Black Boneens, these days? Half a company of em took one of the new draft an hanged him by his arms with a tent-rope from a third-story verandah. They gave no reason for so doin, but he was half dead. Im thinking that the Boneens are short-sighted. It was a friend of Mulcahys, or a man in the same trade. Theyd a deal better ha taken his beer, returned Dan reflectively.
Better still ha handed him up to the Colonel, said Horse Egan, onlessbut sure the news wud be all over the counthry an give the regment a bad name.
An thered be no reward for that manhe but went about talkin, said the Kerry man artlessly.
You speak by your breed, said Dan, with a laugh. There was never a Kerry man yet that wudnt sell his brother for a pipe o tobacco an a pat on the back from a pliceman.
Praise God Im not a bloomin Orangeman, was the answer.
No, nor never will be, said Dan. They breed men in Ulster. Would you like to thry the taste of one?
The Kerry man looked and longed, but forbore. The odds of battle were too great. Then youll not even give Mulcahy aa strike for his money, said the voice of Horse Egan, who regarded what he called trouble of any kind as the pinnacle of felicity.
Dan answered not at all, but crept on tip-toe, with long strides, to the mess-room, the men following. The room was empty. In a corner, cased like the King of Dahomeys state umbrella, stood the regimental Colours. Dan lifted them tenderly and unrolled in the light of the candles the record of the Maverickstattered, worn, and hacked. The white satin was darkened everywhere with big brown stains, the gold threads on the crowned harp were frayed and discoloured, and the Red Bull, the totem of the Mavericks, was coffee-hued. The stiff, embroidered folds, whose price is human life, rustled down slowly. The Mavericks keep their colours long and guard them very sacredly.
Vittoria, Salamanca, Toulouse, Waterloo, Moodkee, Ferozshah, an Sobraonthat was fought close next door here, against the very beggars he wants us to join. Inkerman, The Alma, Sebastopol! What are those little businesses compared to the campaigns of General Mulcahy? The Mutny, think o that; the Mutny an some dirty little matters in Afghanistan; an for that an these an thoseDan pointed to the names of glorious battlesthat Yankee man with the partin in his hair comes an says as easy as have a drink . . . Holy Moses, theres the captain!
But it was the mess-sergeant who came in just as the men clattered out, and found the colours uncased.
From that day dated the mutiny of the Mavericks, to the joy of Mulcahy and the pride of his mother in New Yorkthe good lady who sent the money for the beer. Never, so far as words went, was such a mutiny. The conspirators, led by Dan Grady and Horse Egan, poured in daily. They were sound men, men to be trusted, and they all wanted blood; but first they must have beer. They cursed the Queen, they mourned over Ireland, they suggested hideous plunder of the Indian country-side, and then, alassome of the younger men would go forth and wallow on the ground in spasms of wicked laughter The genius of the Irish for conspiracies is remarkable. None the less they would swear no oaths but those of their own making, which were rare and curious, and they were always at pains to impress Mulcahy with the risks they ran. Naturally the flood of beer wrought demoralisation. But Mulcahy confused the causes of things, and when a very muzzy Maverick smote a sergeant on the nose or called his commanding officer a bald-headed old lard-bladder and even worse names, he fancied that rebellion and not liquor was at the bottom of the outbreak. Other gentlemen who have concerned themselves in larger conspiracies have made the same error.
The hot season, in which they protested no man could rebel, came to an end, and Mulcahy suggested a visible return for his teachings. As to the actual upshot of the mutiny he cared nothing. It would be enough if the English, infatuatedly trusting to the integrity of their army, should be startled with news of an Irish regiment revolting from political considerations. His persistent demands would have ended, at Dans instigation, in a regimental belting which in all probability would have killed him and cut off the supply of beer, had not he been sent on special duty some fifty miles away from the Cantonment to cool his heels in a mud fort and dismount obsolete artillery. Then the colonel of the Mavericks, reading his newspaper diligently, and scenting Frontier trouble from afar, posted to the army headquarters and pled with the Commander-in-chief for certain privileges, to be granted under certain contingencies,; which contingencies came about only a week later, when the annual little war on the border developed itself and the colonel returned to carry the good news to the Mavericks. He held the promise of the Chief for active service, and the men must get ready.
On the evening of the same day, Mulcahy, an unconsidered corporalyet great in conspiracyreturned to cantonments, and heard sounds of strife and howlings from afar off. The mutiny had broken out and the barracks of the Mavericks were one white-washed pandemonium. A private tearing through the barrack-square, gasped in his ear, Service! Active service. Its a burnin shame. Oh joy, the Mavericks had risen on the eve of battle! They would notnoble and loyal sons of Irelandserve the Queen longer. The news would flash through the country-side and over to England, and heMulcahythe trusted of the Third Three, had brought about the crash. The private stood in the middle of the square and cursed colonel, regiment, officers, and doctor, particularly the doctor, by his gods. An orderly of the native cavalry regiment clattered through the mob of soldiers. He was half lifted, half dragged from his horse, beaten on the back with mighty hand-claps till his eyes watered, and called all manner of endearing names. Yes, the Mavericks had fraternized with the native troops. Who then was the agent among the latter that had blindly wrought with Mulcahy so well?
An officer slunk, almost ran, from the mess to a barrack. He was mobbed by the infuriated soldiery, who closed round but did not kill him, for he fought his way to shelter, flying for the life. Mulcahy could have wept with pure joy and thankfulness. The very prisoners in the guard-room were shaking the bars of their cells and howling like wild beasts, and from every barrack poured the booming as of a big war-drum.
Mulcahy hastened to his own barrack. He could hardly hear himself speak. Eighty men were pounding with fist and heel the tables and trestleseighty men, flushed with mutiny, stripped to their shirt sleeves, their knapsacks half-packed for the march to the sea, made the two-inch boards thunder again as they chanted, to a tune that Mulcahy knew well, the Sacred War Song of the Mavericks
Listen in the north, my boys, theres trouble on the wind; Tramp o Cossack hooves in front, gray great-coats behind, Trouble on the Frontier of a most amazin kind, Trouble on the waters o the Oxus! |
Then, as the table broke under the furious accompaniment
Hurrah! hurrah! its north by west we go; Hurrah! hurrah! the chance we wanted so; Let em hear the chorus from Umballa to Moscow, As we go marchin to the Kremling. |
Mother of all the saints in bliss and all the devils in cinders, wheres my fine new sock widout the heel? howled Horse Egan, ransacking everybodys valise but his own. He was engaged in making up deficiencies of kit preparatory to a campaign, and in that work he steals best who steals last. Ah, Mulcahy, youre in good time, he shouted, Weve got the route, and were off on Thursday for a picnic wid the Lancers next door.
An ambulance orderly appeared with a huge basket full of lint rolls, provided by the forethought of the Queen for such as might need them later on. Horse Egan unrolled his bandage, and flicked it under Mulcahys nose, chanting
Sheepskin an bees wax, thunder, pitch, and plaster. The more you try to pull it off, the more it sticks the faster. As I was goin to New Orleans
You know the rest of it, my Irish American-Jew boy. By gad, ye have to fight for the Queen in the inside av a fortnight, my darlin
A roar of laughter interrupted. Mulcahy looked vacantly down the room. Bid a boy defy his father when the pantomime-cab is at the door, or a girl develop a will of her own when her mother is putting the last touches to the first ball-dress, but do not ask an Irish regiment to embark upon mutiny on the eve of a campaign, when it has fraternised with the native regiment that accompanies it, and driven its officers into retirement with ten thousand clamorous questions, and the prisoners dance for joy, and the sick men stand in the open calling down all known diseases on the head of the doctor, who has certified that they are medically unfit for active service. At even the Mavericks might have been mistaken for mutineers by one so unversed in their natures as Mulcahy. At dawn a girls school might have learned deportment from them. They knew that their colonels hand had closed, and that he who broke that iron discipline would not go to the front: nothing in the world will persuade one of our soldiers, when he is ordered to the north on the smallest of affairs, that he is not immediately going gloriously to slay Cossacks and cook his kettles in the palace of the Czar. A few of the younger men mourned for Mulcahys beer, because the campaign was to be conducted on strict temperance principles, but as Dan and Horse Egan said sternly, Weve got the beer-man with us. He shall drink now on his own hook.
Mulcahy had not taken into account the possibility of being sent on active service. He had made up his mind that he would not go under any circumstances, but fortune was against him.
Sick-you? said the doctor, who had served an unholy apprenticeship to his trade in Tralee poorhouses. Youre only home-sick, and what you call varicose veins come from over-eating. A little gentle exercise will cure that. And later, Mulcahy, my man, everybody is allowed to apply for a sick-certificate once. If he tries it twice we call him by an ugly name. Go back to your duty, and lets hear no more of your diseases.
I am ashamed to say that Horse Egan enjoyed the study of Mulcahys soul in those days, and Dan took an equal interest. Together they would communicate to their corporal all the dark lore of death which is the portion of those who have seen men die. Egan had the larger experience, but Dan the finer imagination. Mulcahy shivered when the former spoke of the knife as an intimate acquaintance, or the latter dwelt with loving particularity on the fate of those who, wounded and helpless, had been overlooked by the ambulances, and had fallen into the hands of the Afghan women-folk.
Mulcahy knew that the mutiny, for the present at least, was dead; knew, too, that a change had come over Dans usually respectful attitude towards him, and Horse Egans laughter and frequent allusions to abortive conspiracies emphasised all that the conspirator had guessed. The horrible fascination of the death-stories, however, made him seek the mens society. He learned much more than he had bargained for; and in this manner. It was on the last night before the regiment entrained to the front. The barracks were stripped of everything movable, and the men were too excited to sleep. The bare walls gave out a heavy hospital smell of chloride of lime.
And what, said Mulcahy in an awe-stricken whisper, after some conversation on the eternal subject, are you going to do to me, Dan? This might have been the language of an able conspirator conciliating a weak spirit.
Youll see, said Dan grimly, turning over in his cot, or I rather shud say youll not see.
This was hardly the language of a weak spirit. Mulcahy shook under the bed-clothes.
Be easy with him, put in Egan from the next cot. He has got his chanst o goin clean. Listen, Mulcahy, all we want is for the good sake of the regiment that you take your death standing up, as a man shud. Theres be heaps an heaps of enemyplenshus heaps. Go there an do all you can and die decent. Youll die with a good name there. Tis not a hard thing considerin.Again Mulcahy shivered.
An how could a man wish to die better than fightin? added Dan consolingly.
And if I wont? said the corporal in a dry whisper.
Therell be a dale of smoke, returned Dan, sitting up and ticking off the situation on his fingers, sure to be, an the noise of the firinll be tremenjus, an well be running about up and down, the regiment will. But we, Horse and Iwell stay by you, Mulcahy, and never let you go. Maybe therell be an accident.
Its playing it low on me. Let me go. For pitys sake, let me go. I never did you harm, andand I stood you as much beer as I could. Oh, dont be hard on me, Dan! You areyou were in it too. You wont kill me up there, will you?
Im not thinkin of the treason; though you shud be glad any honest boys drank with you. Its for the regiment. We cant have the shame o you bringin shame on us. You went to the doctor quiet as a sick cat to get and stay behind an live with the women at the depotyou that wanted us to run to the sea in wolf-packs like the rebels none of your black blood dared to be! But we knew about your goin to the doctor, for he told in mess, and its all over the regiment. Bein, as we are, your best friends, we didnt allow any one to molest you yet. We will see to you ourselves. Fight which you willus or the enemy youll never lie in that cot again, and theres more glory and maybe less kicks from fightin the enemy. Thats fair speakin.And he told us by word of mouth to go and join with the niggersyouve forgotten that, Dan, said Horse Egan, to justify sentence.
Whats the use of plaguin the man? One shot pays for all. Sleep ye sound, Mulcahy. But you onderstand, do ye not?
Mulcahy for some weeks understood very little of anything at all save that ever at his elbow, in camp or at parade, stood two big men with soft voices adjuring him to commit hari-kari lest a worse thing should happento die for the honour of the regiment in decency among the nearest knives. But Mulcahy dreaded death. He remembered certain things that priests had said in his infancy, and his mothernot the one at New Yorkstarting from her sleep with shrieks to pray for a husbands soul in torment. It is well to be of a cultured intelligence, but in time of trouble the weak human mind returns to the creed it sucked in at the breast, and if that creed be not a pretty one trouble follows. Also, the death he would have to face would be physically painful. Most conspirators have large imaginations. Mulcahy could see himself, as he lay on the earth in the night, dying by various causes. They were all horrible; the mother in New York was very far away, and the Regiment, the engine that, once you fall in its grip, moves you forward whether you will or wont, was daily coming closer to the enemy!
They were brought to the field of MarzunKatai, and with the Black Boneens to aid, they fought a fight that has never been set down in the newspapers. In response, many believe, to the fervent prayers of Father Dennis, the enemy not only elected to fight in the open, but made a beautiful fight, as many weeping Irish mothers knew later. They gathered behind walls or flickered across the open in shouting masses, and were pot-valiant in artillery. It was expedient to hold a large reserve and wait for the psychological moment that was being prepared by the shrieking shrapnel. Therefore the Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill to watch the play till their call should come. Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the foremost of his boys, and lay like a black porpoise, at length on the grass. To him crawled Mulcahy, ashen-gray, demanding absolution.
Wait till youre shot, said Father Dennis sweetly. Theres a time for everything.
Dan Grady chuckled as he blew for the fiftieth time into the breech of his speckless rifle. Mulcahy groaned and buried his head in his arms till a stray shot spoke like a snipe immediately above his head, and a general heave and tremour rippled the line. Other shots followed and a few took effect, as a shriek or a grunt attested. The officers, who had been lying down with the men, rose and began to walk steadily up and down the front of their companies.
This manoeuvre, executed, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, to soothe men, demands nerve. You must not hurry, you must not look nervous, though you know that you are a mark for every rifle within extreme range, and above all if you are smitten you must make as little noise as possible and roll inwards through the files. It is at this hour, when the breeze brings the first salt whiff of the powder to noses rather cold at the tip, and the eye can quietly take in the appearance of each red casualty, that the strain on the nerves is strongest. Scotch regiments can endure for half a day and abate no whit of their zeal at the end; English regiments sometimes sulk under punishment, while the Irish, like the French, are apt to run forward by ones and twos, which is just as bad as running back. The truly wise commandant of highly-strung troops allows them, in seasons of waiting, to hear the sound of their own voices uplifted in song. There is a legend of an English regiment that lay by its arms under fire chaunting Sam Hall, to the horror of its newly appointed and pious colonel. The Black Boneens, who were suffering more than the Mavericks, on a hill half a mile away, began presently to explain to all who cared to listen
Well sound the jubilee, from the centre to the sea, And Ireland shall be free, says the Shan-van Vogh. |
Sing, boys, said Father Dennis softly. It looks as if we cared for their Afghan peas.
Dan Grady raised himself to his knees and opened his mouth in a song imparted to him, as to most of his comrades, in the strictest confidence by Mulcahythat Mulcahy then lying limp and fainting on the grass, the chill fear of death upon him.
Company after company caught up the words which, the I.A.A. say, are to herald the general rising of Erin, and to breathe which, except to those duly appointed to hear, is death. Wherefore they are printed in this place.
The Saxon in Heavens just balance is weighed, His doom like Belshazzars in death has been cast, And the hand of the venger shall never be stayed Till his race, faith, and speech are a dream of the past. |
They were heart-filling lines and they ran with a swirl; the I.A.A. are better served by their pens than their petards. Dan clapped Mulcahy merrily on the back, asking him to sing up. The officers lay down again. There was no need to walk any more. Their men were soothing themselves thunderously, thus
St. Mary in Heaven has written the vow That the land shall not rest till the heretic blood, From the babe at the breast to the hand at the plough, Has rolled to the ocean like Shannon in flood! |
Ill speak to you after alls over, said Father Dennis authoritatively in Dans ear. Whats the use of confessing to me when you do this foolishness? Dan, youve been playing with fire! Ill lay you more penance in a week than
Come along to Purgatory with us, Father dear. The Boneens are on the move; theyll let us go now!
The regiment rose to the blast of the bugle as one man; but one man there was who rose more swiftly than all the others, for half an inch of bayonet was in the fleshy part of his leg.
Youve got to do it, said Dan grimly. Do it decent, anyhow; and the roar of the rush drowned his words, for the rear companies thrust forward the first, still singing as they swung down the slope
From the child at the breast to the hand at the plough Shall roll to the ocean like Shannon in flood! |
They should have sung it in the face of England, not of the Afghans, whom it impressed as much as did the wild Irish yell.
They came down singing, said the unofficial report of the enemy, borne from village to village the next day. They continued to sing, and it was written that our men could not abide when they came. It is believed that there was magic in the aforesaid song.
Dan and Horse Egan kept themselves in the neighbourhood of Mulcahy. Twice the man would have bolted back in the confusion. Twice he was heaved, kicked, and shouldered back again into the unpaintable inferno of a hotly contested charge.
At the end, the panic excess of his fear drove him into madness beyond all human courage. His eyes staring at nothing, his mouth open and frothing, and breathing as one in a cold bath, he went forward demented, while Dan toiled after him. The charge checked at a high mud wall. It was Mulcahy who scrambled up tooth and nail and hurled down among the bayonets the amazed Afghan who barred his way. It was Mulcahy, keeping to the straight line of the rabid dog, who led a collection of ardent souls at a newly unmasked battery and flung himself on the muzzle of a gun as his companions danced among the gunners. It was Mulcahy who ran wildly on from that battery into the open plain, where the enemy were retiring in sullen groups. His hands were empty, he had lost helmet and belt, and he was bleeding from a wound in the neck. Dan and Horse Egan, panting and distressed, had thrown themselves down on the ground by the captured guns, when they noticed Mulcahys charge.
Mad, said Horse Egan critically. Mad with fear! Hes going straight to his death, an shoutings no use.
Let him go. Watch now! If we fire well hit him maybe.
The last of a hurrying crowd of Afghans turned at the noise of shod feet behind him, and shifted his knife ready to hand. This, he saw, was no time to take prisoners. Mulcahy tore on, sobbing; the straight-held blade went home through the defenceless breast, and the body pitched forward almost before a shot from Dans rifle brought down the slayer and still further hurried the Afghan retreat. The two Irishmen went out to bring in their dead.
He was given the point, and that was an easy death, said Horse Egan, viewing the corpse. But would you ha shot him, Danny, if he had lived?
He didnt live, so theres no sayin. But I doubt I wud have bekaze of the fun he gave uslet alone the beer. Hike up his legs, Horse, and well bring him in. Perhaps tis better this way.
They bore the poor limp body to the mass of the regiment, lolling open-mouthed on their rifles; and there was a general snigger when one of the younger subalterns said, That was a good man!
Phew, said Horse Egan, when a burial-party had taken over the burden. Im powerful dhry, and this reminds me therell be no more beer at all.
Fwhy not? said Dan, with a twinkle in his eye as he stretched himself for rest. Are we not conspirin all we can, an while we conspire are we not entitled to free dhrinks? Sure his ould mother in New York would not let her sons comrades perish of drouthif she can be reached at the end of a letter.
Youre a janius, said Horse Egan. 0 coorse she will not. I wish this crool war was over, an wed get back to canteen. Faith, the Commander-in-chief ought to be hanged in his own little sword-belt for makin us work on wather.
The Mavericks were generally of Horse Egans opinion. So they made haste to get their work done as soon as possible, and their industry was rewarded by unexpected peace. We can fight the sons of Adam, said the tribesmen, but we cannot fight the sons of Eblis, and this regiment never stays still in one place. Let us therefore come in. They came in, and this regiment withdrew to conspire under the leadership of Dan Grady.
Excellent as a subordinate, Dan failed altogether as a chief-in- commandpossibly because he was too much swayed by the advice of the only man in the regiment who could manufacture more than one kind of handwriting. The same mail that bore to Mulcahys mother in New York a letter from the colonel telling her how valiantly her son had fought for the Queen, and how assuredly he would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross had he survived, carried a communication signed, I grieve to say, by that same colonel and all the officers of the regiment, explaining their willingness to do anything which is contrary to the regulations and all kinds of revolutions if only a little money could be forwarded to cover incidental expenses. Daniel Grady, Esquire, would receive funds, vice Mulcahy, who was unwell at this present time of writing.
Both letters were forwarded from New York to Tehama Street, San Francisco, with marginal comments as brief as they were bitter. The Third Three read and looked at each other. Then the Second Conspiratorhe who believed in joining hands with the practical branchesbegan to laugh, and on recovering his gravity said, Gentlemen, I consider this will be a lesson to us. Were left again. Those cursed Irish have let us down. I knew they would, buthere he laughed afreshId give considerable to know what was at the back of it all.
His curiosity would have been satisfied had he seen Dan Grady, discredited regimental conspirator, trying to explain to his thirsty comrades in India the non-arrival of funds from New York.
This theory accounts for some of the more unnecessary horrors of life in India: it may be stretched to explain my story.
My friend Strickland of the Police, who knows as much of natives of India as is good for any man, can bear witness to the facts of the case. Dumoise, our doctor, also saw what Strickland and I saw. The inference which he drew from the evidence was entirely incorrect. He is dead now; he died in a rather curious manner, which has been elsewhere described.
When Fleete came to India he owned a little money and some land in the Himalayas, near a place called Dharmsala. Both properties had been left him by an uncle, and he came out to finance them. He was a big, heavy, genial, and inoffensive man. His knowledge of natives was, of course, limited, and he complained of the difficulties of the language.
He rode in from his place in the hills to spend New Year in the station, and he stayed with Strickland. On New Years Eve there was a big dinner at the club, and the night was excusably wet. When men foregather from the uttermost ends of the Empire they have a right to be riotous. The Frontier had sent down a contingent o Catch-em-Alive-Os who had not seen twenty white faces for a year, and were used to ride fifteen miles to dinner at the next Fort at the risk of a Khyberee bullet where their drinks should lie. They profited by their new security, for they tried to play pool with a curled-up hedgehog found in the garden, and one of them carried the marker round the room in his teeth. Half a dozen planters had come in from the south and were talking horse to the Biggest Liar in Asia, who was trying to cap all their stories at once. Everybody was there, and there was a general closing up of ranks and taking stock of our losses in dead or disabled that had fallen during the past year. It was a very wet night, and I remember that we sang Auld Lang Syne with our feet in the Polo Championship Cup, and our heads among the stars, and swore that we were all dear friends. Then some of us went away and annexed Burma, and some tried to open up the Soudan and were opened up by Fuzzies in that cruel scrub outside Suakim, and some found stars and medals, and some were married, which was bad, and some did other things which were worse, and the others of us stayed in our chains and strove to make money on insufficient experiences.
Fleete began the night with sherry and bitters, drank champagne steadily up to dessert, then raw, rasping Capri with all the strength of whisky, took Benedictine with his coffee, four or five whiskies and sodas to improve his pool strokes, beer and bones at half-past two, winding up with old brandy. Consequently, when he came out, at half-past three in the morning, into fourteen degrees of frost, he was very angry with his horse for coughing, and tried to leapfrog into the saddle. The horse broke away and went to his stables; so Strickland and I formed a Guard of Dishonour to take Fleete home.
Our road lay through the bazaar, close to a little temple of Hanuman, the Monkey-god, who is a leading divinity worthy of respect. All gods have good points, just as have all priests. Personally, I attach much importance to Hanuman, and am kind to his peoplethe great gray apes of the hills. One never knows when one may want a friend.
There was a light in the temple, and as we passed we could hear voices of men chanting hymns. In a native temple the priests rise at all hours of the night to do honour to their god. Before we could stop him, Fleete dashed up the steps, patted two priests on the back, and was gravely grinding the ashes of his cigar-butt in to the forehead of the red stone image of Hanuman. Strickland tried to drag him out, but he sat down and said solemnly:
Shee that? Mark of the Bbeasht! I made it. Ishnt it fine?
In half a minute the temple was alive and noisy, and Strickland, who knew what came of polluting gods, said that things might occur. He, by virtue of his official position, long residence in the country, and weakness for going among the natives, was known to the priests and he felt unhappy. Fleete sat on the ground and refused to move. He said that good old Hanuman made a very soft pillow.
Then, without any warning, a Silver Man came out of a recess behind the image of the god. He was perfectly naked in that bitter, bitter cold, and his body shone like frosted silver, for he was what the Bible calls a leper as white as snow. Also he had no face, because he was a leper of some years standing, and his disease was heavy upon him. We two stooped to haul Fleete up, and the temple was filling and filling with folk who seemed to spring from the earth, when the Silver Man ran in under our arms, making a noise exactly like the mewing of an otter, caught Fleete round the body and dropped his head on Fleetes breast before we could wrench him away. Then he retired to a corner and sat mewing while the crowd blocked all the doors.
The priests were very angry until the Silver Man touched Fleete. That nuzzling seemed to sober them.
At the end of a few minutes silence one of the priests came to Strickland and said, in perfect English, Take your friend away. He has done with Hanuman but Hanuman has not done with him. The crowd gave room and we carried Fleete into the road.
Strickland was very angry. He said that we might all three have been knifed, and that Fleete should thank his stars that he had escaped without injury.
Fleete thanked no one. He said that he wanted to go to bed. He was gorgeously drunk.
We moved on, Strickland silent and wrathful, until Fleete was taken with violent shivering fits and sweating. He said that the smells of the bazaar were overpowering, and he wondered why slaughter-houses were permitted so near English residences. Cant you smell the blood? said Fleete.
We put him to bed at last, just as the dawn was breaking, and Strickland invited me to have another whisky and soda. While we were drinking he talked of the trouble in the temple, and admitted that it baffled him completely. Strickland hates being mystified by natives, because his business in life is to overmatch them with their own weapons. He has not yet succeeded in doing this, but in fifteen or twenty years he will have made some small progress.
They should have mauled us, he said, instead of mewing at us. I wonder what they meant. I dont like it one little bit.
I said that the Managing Committee of the temple would in all probability bring a criminal action against us for insulting their religion. There was a section of the Indian Penal Code which exactly met Fleetes offence. Strickland said he only hoped and prayed that they would do this. Before I left I looked into Fleetes room, and saw him lying on his right side, scratching his left breast. Then I went to bed cold, depressed, and unhappy, at seven oclock in the morning.
At one oclock I rode over to Stricklands house to inquire after Fleetes head. I imagined that it would be a sore one. Fleete was breakfasting and seemed unwell. His temper was gone, for he was abusing the cook for not supplying him with an underdone chop. A man who can eat raw meat after a wet night is a curiosity. I told Fleete this and he laughed.
You breed queer mosquitoes in these parts, he said. Ive been bitten to pieces, but only in one place.
Lets have a look at the bite, said Strickland. It may have gone down since this morning.
While the chops were being cooked, Fleete opened his shirt and showed us, just over his left breast, a mark, the perfect double of the black rosettesthe five or six irregular blotches arranged in a circleon a leopards hide. Strickland looked and said, It was only pink this morning. Its grown black now.
Fleete ran to a glass.
By Jove! he said, this is nasty. What is it?
We could not answer. Here the chops came in, all red and juicy, and Fleete bolted three in a most offensive manner. He ate on his right grinders only, and threw his head over his right shoulder as he snapped the meat. When he had finished, it struck him that he had been behaving strangely, for he said apologetically, I dont think I ever felt so hungry in my life. Ive bolted like an ostrich.
After breakfast Strickland said to me, Dont go. Stay here, and stay for the night.
Seeing that my house was not three miles from Stricklands, this request was absurd. But Strickland insisted, and was going to say something, when Fleete interrupted by declaring in a shame-faced way that he felt hungry again. Strickland sent a man to my house to fetch over my bedding and a horse, and we three went down to Stricklands stables to pass the hours until it was time to go out for a ride. The man who has a weakness for horses never wearies of inspecting them; and when two men are killing time in this way they gather knowledge and lies the one from the other.
There were five horses in the stables, and I shall never forget the scene as we tried to look them over. They seemed to have gone mad. They reared and screamed and nearly tore up their pickets; they sweated and shivered and lathered and were distraught with fear. Stricklands horses used to know him as well as his dogs; which made the matter more curious. We left the stable for fear of the brutes throwing themselves in their panic. Then Strickland turned back and called me. The horses were still frightened, but they let us gentle and make much of them, and put their heads in our bosoms.
They arent afraid of us, said Strickland. D you know, Id give three months pay if Outrage here could talk.
But Outrage was dumb, and could only cuddle up to his master and blow out his nostrils, as is the custom of horses when they wish to explain things but cant. Fleete came up when we were in the stalls, and as soon as the horses saw him, their fright broke out afresh. It was all that we could do to escape from the place unkicked. Strickland said, They dont seem to love you, Fleete.
Nonsense, said Fleete; my mare will follow me like a dog. He went to her; she was in a loose-box; but as he slipped the bars she plunged, knocked him down, and broke away into the garden. I laughed, but Strickland was not amused. He took his moustache in both fists and pulled at it till it nearly came out. Fleete, instead of going off to chase his property, yawned, saying that he felt sleepy. He went to the house to lie down, which was a foolish way of spending New Years Day.
Strickland sat with me in the stables and asked if I had noticed anything peculiar in Fleetes manner. I said that he ate his food like a beast; but that this might have been the result of living alone in the hills out of the reach of society as refined and elevating as ours for instance. Strickland was not amused. I do not think that he listened to me, for his next sentence referred to the mark on Fleetes breast, and I said that it might have been caused by blister-flies, or that it was possibly a birth-mark newly born and now visible for the first time. We both agreed that it was unpleasant to look at, and Strickland found occasion to say that I was a fool.
I cant tell you what I think now, said he, because you would call me a madman; but you must stay with me for the next few days, if you can. I want you to watch Fleete, but dont tell me what you think till I have made up my mind.
But I am dining out to-night, I said.
So am I, said Strickland, and so is Fleete. At least if he doesnt change his mind.
We walked about the garden smoking, but saying nothingbecause we were friends, and talking spoils good tobaccotill our pipes were out. Then we went to wake up Fleete. He was wide awake and fidgeting about his room.
I say, I want some more chops, he said. Can I get them?
We laughed and said, Go and change. The ponies will be round in a minute.
All right, said Fleete. Ill go when I get the chopsunderdone ones, mind.
He seemed to be quite in earnest. It was four oclock, and we had had breakfast at one; still, for a long time, he demanded those underdone chops. Then he changed into riding clothes and went out into the verandah. His ponythe mare had not been caughtwould not let him come near. All three horses were unmanageablemad with fearand finally Fleete said that he would stay at home and get something to eat. Strickland and I rode out wondering. As we passed the temple of Hanuman the Silver Man came out and mewed at us.
He is not one of the regular priests of the temple, said Strickland. I think I should peculiarly like to lay my hands on him.
There was no spring in our gallop on the racecourse that evening. The horses were stale, and moved as though they had been ridden out.
The fright after breakfast has been too much for them, said Strickland.
That was the only remark he made through the remainder of the ride. Once or twice, I think, he swore to himself; but that did not count.
We came back in the dark at seven oclock, and saw that there were no lights in the bungalow. Careless ruffians my servants are! said Strickland.
My horse reared at something on the carriage drive, and Fleete stood up under its nose.
What are you doing, grovelling about the garden? said Strickland.
But both horses bolted and nearly threw us. We dismounted by the stables and returned to Fleete, who was on his hands and knees under the orange-bushes.
What the devils wrong with you? said Strickland.
Nothing, nothing in the world, said Fleete, speaking very quickly and thickly. Ive been gardeningbotanising, you know. The smell of the earth is delightful. I think Im going for a walka long walkall night.
Then I saw that there was something excessively out of order somewhere, and I said to Strickland, I am not dining out.
Bless you! said Strickland. Here, Fleete, get up. Youll catch fever there. Come in to dinner and lets have the lamps lit. Well all dine at home.
Fleete stood up unwillingly, and said, No lampsno lamps. Its much nicer here. Lets dine outside and have some more chopslots of em and underdonebloody ones with gristle.
Now a December evening in Northern India is bitterly cold, and Fleetes suggestion was that of a maniac.
Come in, said Strickland sternly. Come in at once.
Fleete came, and when the lamps were brought, we saw that he was literally plastered with dirt from head to foot. He must have been rolling in the garden. He shrank from the light and went to his room. His eyes were horrible to look at. There was a green light behind them, not in them, if you understand, and the mans lower lip hung down.
Strickland said, There is going to be troublebig troubleto-night. Dont you change your riding-things.
We waited and waited for Fleetes reappearance, and ordered dinner in the meantime. We could hear him moving about his own room, but there was no light there. Presently from the room came the long-drawn howl of a wolf.
People write and talk lightly of blood running cold and hair standing up, and things of that kind. Both sensations are too horrible to be trifled with.
My heart stopped as though a knife had been driven through it, and Strickland turned as white as the tablecloth.
The howl was repeated, and was answered by another howl far across the fields.
That set the gilded roof on the horror. Strickland dashed into Fleetes room. I followed, and we saw Fleete getting out of the window. He made beast-noises in the back of his throat. He could not answer us when we shouted at him. He spat.
I dont quite remember what followed, but I think that Strickland must have stunned him with the long boot-jack, or else I should never have been able to sit on his chest. Fleete could not speak, he could only snarl, and his snarls were those of a wolf, not of a man. The human spirit must have been giving way all day and have died out with the twilight. We were dealing with a beast that had once been Fleete.
The affair was beyond any human and rational experience. I tried to say Hydrophobia, but the word wouldnt come, because I knew that I was lying.
We bound this beast with leather thongs of the punkah-rope, and tied its thumbs and big toes together, and gagged it with a shoe-horn, which makes a very efficient gag if you know how to arrange it. Then we carried it into the dining-room, and sent a man to Dumoise, the doctor, telling him to come over at once. After we had despatched the messenger and were drawing breath, Strickland said, Its no good. This isnt any doctors work. I, also, knew that he spoke the truth.
The beasts head was free, and it threw it about from side to side. Any one entering the room would have believed that we were curing a wolfs pelt. That was the most loathsome accessory of all.
Strickland sat with his chin in the heel of his fist, watching the beast as it wriggled on the ground, but saying nothing. The shirt had been torn open in the scuffle and showed the black rosette mark on the left breast. It stood out like a blister.
In the silence of the watching we heard something withoutmewing like a she-otter. We both rose to our feet, and, I answer for myself, not Strickland, felt sickactually and physically sick. We told each other, as did the men in Pinafore, that it was the cat.
Dumoise arrived, and I never saw a little man so unprofessionally shocked. He said that it was a heart-rending case of hydrophobia, and that nothing could be done. At least any palliative measures would only prolong the agony. The beast was foaming at the mouth. Fleete, as we told Dumoise, had been bitten by dogs once or twice. Any man who keeps half a dozen terriers must expect a nip now and again. Dumoise could offer no help. He could only certify that Fleete was dying of hydrophobia. The beast was then howling, for it had managed to spit out the shoe-horn. Dumoise said that he would be ready to certify to the cause of death, and that the end was certain. He was a good little man, and he offered to remain with us; but Strickland refused the kindness. He did not wish to poison Dumoises New Year. He would only ask him not to give the real cause of Fleetes death to the public.
So Dumoise left, deeply agitated; and as soon as the noise of the cart-wheels had died away, Strickland told me, in a whisper, his suspicions. They were so wildly improbable that he dared not say them out aloud; and I, who entertained all Stricklands beliefs, was so ashamed of owning to them that I pretended to disbelieve.
Even if the Silver Man had bewitched Fleete for polluting the image of Hanuman, the punishment could not have fallen so quickly.
As I was whispering this the cry outside the house rose again, and the beast fell into a fresh paroxysm of struggling till we were afraid that the thongs that held it would give way.
Watch! said Strickland. If this happens six times I shall take the law into my own hands. I order you to help me.
He went into his room and came out in a few minutes with the barrels of an old shot-gun, a piece of fishing-line, some thick cord, and his heavy wooden bedstead. I reported that the convulsions had followed the cry by two seconds in each case, and the beast seemed perceptibly weaker.
Strickland muttered, But he cant take away the life! He cant take away the life!
I said, though I knew that I was arguing against myself, It may be a cat. It must be a cat. If the Silver Man is responsible, why does he dare to come here?
Strickland arranged the wood on the hearth, put the gun-barrels into the glow of the fire, spread the twine on the table, and broke a walking stick in two. There was one yard of fishing line, gut lapped with wire, such as is used for mahseer-fishing, and he tied the two ends together in a loop.
Then he said, How can we catch him? He must be taken alive and unhurt.
I said that we must trust in Providence, and go out softly with polo-sticks into the shrubbery at the front of the house. The man or animal that made the cry was evidently moving round the house as regularly as a night-watchman. We could wait in the bushes till he came by and knock him over.
Strickland accepted this suggestion, and we slipped out from a bath-room window into the front verandah and then across the carriage drive into the bushes.
In the moonlight we could see the leper coming round the corner of the house. He was perfectly naked, and from time to time he mewed and stopped to dance with his shadow. It was an unattractive sight, and thinking of poor Fleete, brought to such degradation by so foul a creature, I put away all my doubts and resolved to help Strickland from the heated gun-barrels to the loop of twinefrom the loins to the head and back againwith all tortures that might be needful.
The leper halted in the front porch for a moment and we jumped out on him with the sticks. He was wonderfully strong, and we were afraid that he might escape or be fatally injured before we caught him. We had an idea that lepers were frail creatures, but this proved to be incorrect. Strickland knocked his legs from under him and I put my foot on his neck. He mewed hideously, and even through my riding-boots I could feel that his flesh was not the flesh of a clean man.
He struck at us with his hand and feet-stumps. We looped the lash of a dog-whip round him, under the arm-pits, and dragged him backwards into the hall and so into the dining-room where the beast lay. There we tied him with trunk-straps. He made no attempt to escape, but mewed.
When we confronted him with the beast the scene was beyond description. The beast doubled backwards into a bow as though he had been poisoned with strychnine, and moaned in the most pitiable fashion. Several other things happened also, but they cannot be put down here.
I think I was right, said Strickland. Now we will ask him to cure this case.
But the leper only mewed. Strickland wrapped a towel round his hand and took the gun-barrels out of the fire. I put the half of the broken walking stick through the loop of fishing-line and buckled the leper comfortably to Stricklands bedstead. I understood then how men and women and little children can endure to see a witch burnt alive; for the beast was moaning on the floor, and though the Silver Man had no face, you could see horrible feelings passing through the slab that took its place, exactly as waves of heat play across red-hot irongun-barrels for instance.
Strickland shaded his eyes with his hands for a moment and we got to work. This part is not to be printed.
The dawn was beginning to break when the leper spoke. His mewings had not been satisfactory up to that point. The beast had fainted from exhaustion and the house was very still. We unstrapped the leper and told him to take away the evil spirit. He crawled to the beast and laid his hand upon the left breast. That was all. Then he fell face down and whined, drawing in his breath as he did so.
We watched the face of the beast, and saw the soul of Fleete coming back into the eyes. Then a sweat broke out on the forehead and the eyesthey were human eyesclosed. We waited for an hour, but Fleete still slept. We carried him to his room and bade the leper go, giving him the bedstead, and the sheet on the bedstead to cover his nakedness, the gloves and the towels with which we had touched him, and the whip that had been hooked round his body. He put the sheet about him and went out into the early morning without speaking or mewing.
Strickland wiped his face and sat down. A night-gong, far away in the city, made seven oclock.
Exactly four-and-twenty hours! said Strickland. And Ive done enough to ensure my dismissal from the service, besides permanent quarters in a lunatic asylum. Do you believe that we are awake?
The red-hot gun-barrel had fallen on the floor and was singeing the carpet. The smell was entirely real.
That morning at eleven we two together went to wake up Fleete. We looked and saw that the black leopard-rosette on his chest had disappeared. He was very drowsy and tired, but as soon as he saw us, he said, Oh! Confound you fellows. Happy New Year to you. Never mix your liquors. Im nearly dead.
Thanks for your kindness, but youre over time, said Strickland. To-day is the morning of the second. Youve slept the clock round with a vengeance.
The door opened, and little Dumoise put his head in. He had come on foot, and fancied that we were laying out Fleete.
Ive brought a nurse, said Dumoise. I suppose that she can come in for ... what is necessary.
By all means, said Fleete cheerily, sitting up in bed. Bring on your nurses.
Dumoise was dumb. Strickland led him out and explained that there must have been a mistake in the diagnosis. Dumoise remained dumb and left the house hastily. He considered that his professional reputation had been injured, and was inclined to make a personal matter of the recovery. Strickland went out too. When he came back, he said that he had been to call on the Temple of Hanuman to offer redress for the pollution of the god, and had been solemnly assured that no white man had ever touched the idol, and that he was an incarnation of all the virtues labouring under a delusion. What do you think? said Strickland.
I said, There are more things ...
But Strickland hates that quotation. He says that I have worn it threadbare.
One other curious thing happened which frightened me as much as anything in all the nights work. When Fleete was dressed he came into the dining-room and sniffed. He had a quaint trick of moving his nose when he sniffed. Horrid doggy smell, here, said he. You should really keep those terriers of yours in better order. Try sulphur, Strick.
But Strickland did not answer. He caught hold of the back of a chair, and, without warning, went into an amazing fit of hysterics. It is terrible to see a strong man overtaken with hysteria. Then it struck me that we had fought for Fleetes soul with the Silver Man in that room, and had disgraced ourselves as Englishmen for ever, and I laughed and gasped and gurgled just as shamefully as Strickland, while Fleete thought that we had both gone mad. We never told him what we had done.
Some years later, when Strickland had married and was a church-going member of society for his wifes sake, we reviewed the incident dispassionately, and Strickland suggested that I should put it before the public.
I cannot myself see that this step is likely to clear up the mystery; because, in the first place, no one will believe a rather unpleasant story, and, in the second, it is well known to every right-minded man that the gods of the heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt to deal with them otherwise is justly condemned.
After three or four months of the scorching hot weather had gone by, my friend Strickland, of the police force, saw fit to rent the bungalow from the native landlord. This was before he was engaged to Miss Youghalan affair which has been described in another placeand while he was pursuing his investigations into native life. His own life was sufficiently peculiar, and men complained of his manners and customs. There was always food in his house, but there were no regular times for meals. He eat, standing up and walking about, whatever he might find on the sideboard, and this is not good for the in-sides of human beings. His domestic equipment was limited to six rifles, three shotguns, five saddles, and a collection of stiff-jointed masheer rods, bigger and stronger than the largest salmon rods. These things occupied one half of his bungalow, and the other half was given up to Strickland and his dog Tietjensan enormous Rampur slut, who sung when she was ordered, and devoured daily the rations of two men. She spoke to Strickland in a language of her own, and whenever, in her walks abroad she saw things calculated to destroy the peace of Her Majesty the Queen Empress, she returned to her master and gave him information. Strickland would take steps at once, and the end of his labors was trouble and fine and imprisonment for other people. The natives believed that Tietjens was a familiar spirit, and treated her with the great reverence that is born of hate and fear One room in the bungalow was set apart for her special use. She owned a bedstead, a blanket, and a drinking-trough, and if any one came into Stricklands room at night, her custom was to knock down the invader and give tongue till some one came with a light. Strickland owes his life to her. When he was on the frontier in search of the local murderer who came in the grey dawn to send Strickland much further than the Andaman Islands, Tietjens caught him as he was crawling into Stricklands tent with a dagger between his teeth, and after his record of iniquity was established in the eyes of the law, he was hanged. From that date Tietjens wore a collar of rough silver and employed a monogram on her night blanket, and the blanket was double-woven Kashmir cloth, for she was a delicate dog.
Under no circumstances would she be separated from Strickland, and when he was ill with fever she made great trouble for the doctors because she did not know how to help her master and would not allow another creature to attempt aid. Macarnaght, of the Indian Medical Service, beat her over the head with a gun, before she could understand that she must give room for those who could give quinine.
A short time after Strickland had taken Imrays bungalow, my business took me through that station, and naturally, the club quarters being full, I quartered myself upon Strickland. It was a desirable bungalow, eight-roomed, and heavily thatched against any chance of leakage from rain. Under the pitch of the roof ran a ceiling cloth, which looked just as nice as a whitewashed ceiling. The landlord had repainted it when Strickland took the bungalow, and unless you knew how Indian bungalows were built you would never have suspected that above the cloth lay the dark, three- cornered cavern of the roof, where the beams and the under side of the thatch harbored all manner of rats, hats, ants, and other things.
Tietjens met me in the veranda with a bay like the boom of the bells of St. Pauls, and put her paws on my shoulders and said she was glad to see me. Strickland had contrived to put together that sort of meal which he called lunch, and immediately after it was finished went out about his business. I was left alone with Tietjens and my own affairs. The heat of the summer had broken up and given place to the warm damp of the rains. There was no motion in the heated air, but the rain fell like bayonet rods on the earth, and flung up a blue mist where it splashed back again. The bamboos and the custard apples, the poinsettias and the mango-trees in the garden stood still while the warm water lashed through them, and the frogs began to sing among the aloe hedges. A little before the light failed, and when the rain was at its worst, I sat in the back veranda and beard the water roar from the eaves, and scratched myself because I was covered with the thing they called prickly heat. Tietjens came out with me and put her head in my lap, and was very sorrowful, so I gave her biscuits when tea was ready, and I took tea in the back veranda on account of the little coolness I found there. The rooms of the house were dark behind me. I could smell Stricklands saddlery and the oil on his guns, and I did not the least desire to sit among these things. My own servant came to me in the twilight, the muslin of his clothes clinging tightly to his drenched body, and told me that a gentleman had called and wished to see some one. Very much against my will, and because of the darkness of the rooms, I went into the naked drawing-room, telling my man to bring the lights. There might or might not have been a caller in the roomit seems to me that I saw a figure by one of the windows, but when the lights came there was nothing save the spikes of the rain without and the smell of the drinking earth in my nostrils. I explained to my man that he was no wiser than he ought to be, and went back to the veranda to talk to Tietjens. She had gone out into the wet and I could hardly coax her back to meeven with biscuits with sugar on top. Strickland rode back, dripping wet, just before dinner, and the first thing he said was:
Has any one called?
I explained, with apologies, that my servant had called me into the drawing-room on a false alarm; or that some loafer had tried to call on Strickland, and, thinking better of it, fled after giving his name. Strickland ordered dinner without comment, and since it was a real dinner, with white tablecloth attached, we sat down.
At nine oclock Strickland wanted to go to bed, and I was tired too. Tietjens, who had been lying underneath the table, rose up and went into the least exposed veranda as soon as her master moved to his own room, which was next to the stately chamber set apart for Tietjens. If a mere wife had wished to sleep out-of-doors in that pelting rain, it would not have mattered, but Tietjens was a dog, and therefore the better animal. I looked at Strickland, expecting to see him flog her with a whip. He smiled queerly, as a man would smile after telling some hideous domestic tragedy. She has done this ever since I moved in here.
The dog was Stricklands dog, so I said nothing, but I felt all that Strickland felt in being made light of. Tietjens encamped outside my bedroom window, and storm after storm came up, thundered on the thatch, and died away. The lightning spattered the sky as a thrown egg spattered a barn door, but the light was pale blue, not yellow; and looking through my slit bamboo blinds, I could see the great dog standing, not sleeping, in the veranda, the hackles alift on her back, and her feet planted as tensely as the drawn wire rope of a suspension bridge. In the very short pauses of the thunder I tried to sleep, but it seemed that some one wanted me very badly. He, whoever he was, was trying to call me by name, but his voice was no more than a husky whisper. Then the thunder ceased and Tietjens went into the garden and howled at the low moon. Somebody tried to open my door, and walked about and through the house, and stood breathing heavily in the verandas, and just when I was falling asleep I fancied that I heard a wild hammering and clamoring above my head or on the door.
I ran into Stricklands room and asked him whether he was ill and had been calling for me. He was lying on the bed half-dressed, with a pipe in his mouth. I thought youd come, he said. Have I been walking around the house at all?
I explained that he had been in the dining-room and the smoking-room and two or three other places; and he laughed and told me to go back to bed. I went back to bed and slept till the morning, but in all my dreams I was sure I was doing some one an injustice in not attending to his wants. What those wants were I could not tell, but a fluttering, whispering, bolt-fumbling, luring, loitering some-one was reproaching me for my slackness, and through all the dreams I heard the howling of Tietjens in the garden and the thrashing of the rain.
I was in that house for two days, and Strickland went to his office daily, leaving me alone for eight or ten hours a day, with Tietjens for my only companion. As long as the full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was Tietjens; but in the twilight she and I moved into the back veranda and cuddled each other for company. We were alone in the house, but for all that it was fully occupied by a tenant with whom I had no desire to interfere. I never saw him, but I could see the curtains between the rooms quivering where he had just passed through; I could hear the chairs creaking as the bamboos sprung under a weight that had just quitted them; and I could feel when I went to get a book from the dining-room that somebody was waiting in the shadows of the front veranda till I should have gone away. Tietjens made the twilight more interesting by glaring into the darkened rooms, with every hair erect, and following the motions of something that I could not see. She never entered the rooms, but her eyes moved, and that was quite sufficient. Only when my servant came to trim the lamps and make all light and habitable, she would come in with me and spend her time sitting on her haunches watching an invisible extra man as he moved about behind my shoulder. Dogs are cheerful companions.
I explained to Strickland, gently as might be, that I would go over to the club and find for myself quarters there. I admired his hospitality, was pleased with his guns and rods, but I did not much care for his house and its atmosphere. He heard me out to the end, and then smiled very wearily, but without contempt, for he is a man who understands things. Stay on, he said, and see what this thing means. All you have talked about I have known since I took the bungalow. Stay on and wait. Tietjens has left me. Are you going too?
I had seen him through one little affair connected with an idol that had brought me to the doors of a lunatic asylum, and I had no desire to help him through further experiences. He was a man to whom unpleasantnesses arrived as do dinners to ordinary people.
Therefore I explained more clearly than ever that I liked him immensely, and would he happy to see him in the daytime, but that I didnt care to sleep under his roof. This was after dinner, when Tietjens had gone out to lie in the veranda.
Pon my soul, I dont wonder, said Strickland, with his eyes on the ceiling-cloth. Look at that.
The tails of two snakes were hanging between the cloth and the cornice of the wall. They threw long shadows in the lamp-light. If you are afraid of snakes, of coursesaid Strickland. I hate and fear snakes, because if you look into the eyes of any snake you will see that it knows all and more of mans fall, and that it feels all the contempt that the devil felt when Adam was evicted from Eden. Besides which its bite is generally fatal, and it bursts up trouser legs.
You ought to get your thatch over-hauled, I said. Give me a masheer rod, and well poke em down.
Theyll hide among the roof beams, said Strickland. I cant stand snakes overhead. Im going up. If I shake em down, stand by with a cleaning-rod and break their backs.
I was not anxious to assist Strickland in his work, hut I took the loading-rod and waited in the dining-room, while Strickland brought a gardeners ladder from the veranda and set it against the side of the room. The snake tails drew themselves up and disappeared. We could hear the dry rushing scuttle of long bodies running over the baggy cloth. Strickland took a lamp with him, while I tried to make clear the danger of hunting roof snakes between a ceiling cloth and a thatch, apart from the deterioration of property caused by ripping out ceiling-cloths.
Nonsense said Strickland. Theyre sure to hide near the walls by the cloth. The bricks are too cold for em, and the heat of the room is just what they like. He put his hands to the corner of the cloth and ripped the rotten stuff from the cornice. It gave great sound of tearing, and Strickland put his head through the opening into the dark of the angle of the roof beams. I set my teeth and lifted the loading-rod, for I had not the least knowledge of what might descend.
Hm, said Strickland; and his voice rolled and rumbled in the roof. Theres room for another set of rooms up here, and, by Jove! some one is occupying em.
Snakes? I said down below.
No. Its a buffalo. Hand me up the two first joints of a masheer rod, and Ill prod it. Its lying on the main beam.
I handed up the rod.
What a nest for owls and serpents! No wonder the snakes live here, said Strickland, climbing further into the roof. I could see his elbow thrusting with the rod. Come out of that, whoever you are! Look out! Heads below there! Its tottering.
I saw the ceiling-cloth nearly in the centre of the room bag with a shape that was pressing it downward and downward toward the lighted lamps on the table. I snatched a lamp out of danger and stood back. Then the cloth ripped out from the walls, tore, split, swayed, and shot down upon the table something that I dared not look at till Strickland had slid down the ladder and was standing by my side.
He did not say much, being a man of few words, but he picked up the loose end of the table-cloth and threw it over the thing on the table.
It strikes me, said he, pulling down the lamp, our friend Imray has come back. Oh! you would, would you?
There was a movement under the cloth, and a little snake wriggled out, to be back-broken by the butt of the masheer rod. I was sufficiently sick to make no remarks worth recording.
Strickland meditated and helped himself to drinks liberally. The thing under the cloth made no more signs of life.
Is it Imray? I said.
Strickland turned back the cloth for a moment and looked. It is Imray, he said, and his throat is cut from ear to ear.
Then we spoke both together and to ourselves:
Thats why he whispered about the house.
Tietjens, in the garden, began to bay furiously. A little later her great nose heaved upon the dining-room door.
She sniffed and was still. The broken and tattered ceiling-cloth hung down almost to the level of the table, and there was hardly room to move away from the discovery.
Then Tietjens came in and sat down, her teeth bared and her forepaws planted. She looked at Strickland.
Its bad business, old lady, said he. Men dont go up into the roofs of their bungalows to die, and they dont fasten up the ceiling-cloth behind em. Lets think it out.
Lets think it out somewhere else, I said.
Excellent idea! Turn the lamps out. Well get into my room.
I did not turn the lamps out. I went into Stricklands room first and allowed him to make the darkness. Then he followed me, and we lighted tobacco and thought. Strickland did the thinking. I smoked furiously because I was afraid.
Imray is back, said Strickland. The question is, who killed Imray? Dont talkI have a notion of my own. When I took this bungalow I took most of Imrays servants. Imray was guile-less and inoffensive, wasnt he?
I agreed, though the heap under the cloth looked neither one thing nor the other.
If I call the servants they will stand fast in a crowd and lie like Aryans. What do you suggest?
Call em in one by one, I said.
Theyll run away and give the news to all their fellows, said Strickland.
We must segregate em. Do you suppose your servant knows anything about it?
He may, for aught I know, hut I dont think its likely. He has only been here two or three days.
Whats your notion? I asked.
I cant quite tell. How the dickens did the man get the wrong side of the ceiling-cloth?
There was a heavy coughing outside Stricklands bedroom door. This showed that Bahadur Khan, his body-servant, had waked from sleep and wished to put Strickland to bed.
Come in, said Strickland. It is a very warm night, isnt it?
Bahadur Khan, a great, green-turbaned, six-foot Mohammedan, said that it was a very warm night, but that there was more rain pending, which, by his honors favor, would bring relief to the country.
It will be so, if God pleases, said Strickland, tugging off his hoots. It is in my mind, Bahadur Khan, that I have worked thee remorselessly for many daysever since that time when thou first came into my service. What time was that?
Has the heaven-born forgotten? It was when Imray Sahib went secretly to Europe without warning given, and I even Icame into the honored service of the protector of the poor.
And Imray Sahib went to Europe?
It is so said among the servants.
And thou wilt take service with him when he returns?
Assuredly, sahib. He was a good master and cherished his dependents.
That is true. I am very tired, but I can go buck-shooting to-morrow. Give me the little rifle that I use for black buck; it is in the case yonder.
The man stooped over the case, banded barrels, stock, and fore-end to Strickland, who fitted them together. Yawning dolefully, then he reached down to the gun-case, took a solid drawn cartridge, and slipped it into the breech of the .360 express.
And Imray Sahib has gone to Europe secretly? That is very strange, Bahadur Khan, is it not?
What do I know of the ways of the white man, heaven-born?
Very little, truly. But thou shalt know more. It has reached me that Imray Sahib has returned from his so long journeyings, and that even now he lies in the next room, waiting his servant.
Sahib!
The lamp-light slid along the barrels of the rifle as they leveled themselves against Bahadur Khans broad breast.
Go then and look! said Strickland.
Take a lamp. Thy master is tired, and he waits. Go!
The man picked up a lamp and went into the dining-room, Strickland following, and almost pushing him with the muzzle of the rifle. He looked for a moment at the black depths behind the ceiling-cloth, at the carcass of the mangled snake under foot, and last, a grey glaze setting on his face, at the thing under the table-cloth.
Hast thou seen? said Strickland, after a pause.
I have seen. I am clay in the white mans hands. What does the presence do?
Hang thee within a month! What else?
For killing him? Nay, sahib, consider. Walking among us, his servants, he cast his eyes upon my child, who was four years old. Him he bewitched, and in ten days he died of the fever. My child!
What said Imray Sahib?
He said he was a handsome child, and patted him on the head; wherefore my child died. Wherefore I killed Imray Sahib in the twilight, when he came back from office and was sleeping. The heaven-born knows all things. I am the servant of the heaven- born.
Strickland looked at me above the rifle, and said, in the vernacular: Thou art witness to this saying. He has killed.
Bahadur Khan stood ashen grey in the light of the one lamp. The need for justification came upon him very swiftly.
I am trapped, he said, but the offence was that mans. He cast an evil eye upon my child, and I killed and hid him. Only such as are served by devils, he glared at Tietjens, crouched stolidly before him, only such could know what I did.
It was clever. But thou shouldst have lashed him to the beam with a rope. Now, thou thyself wilt hang by a rope. Orderly!
A drowsy policeman answered Stricklands call. He was followed by another, and Tietjens sat still.
Take him to the station, said Strickland. There is a case toward.
Do I hang, then? said Bahadur Khan, making no attempt to escape and keeping his eyes on the ground.
If the sun shines, or the water runs, thou wilt hang, said Strickland. Bahadur Khan stepped back one pace, quivered, and stood still The two policemen waited further orders.
Go! said Strickland.
Nay; but I go very swiftly, said Bahadur Khan. Look! I am even now a dead man.
He lifted his foot, and to the little toe there clung the head of the half-killed snake, firm fixed in the agony of death.
I come of land-holding stock, said Bahadur Khan, rocking where he stood. It were a disgrace for me to go to the public scaffold, therefore I take this way. Be it remembered that the sahibs shirts are correctly enumerated, and that there is an extra piece of soap in his washbasin. My child was bewitched, and I slew the wizard. Why should you seek to slay me? My honor is saved, andandI die.
At the end of an hour he died as they die who are bitten by the little kariat, and the policeman bore him and the thing under the table-cloth to their appointed places. They were needed to make clear the disappearance of Imray
This, said Strickland, very calmly, as he climbed into bed, is called the nineteenth century. Did you hear what that man said?
I heard, I answered. Imray made a mistake.
Simply and solely through not knowing the nature and coincidence of a little seasonal fever. Bahadur Khan has been with him for four years.
I shuddered. My own servant had been with me for exactly that length of time. When I went over to my own room I found him waiting, impassive as the copper head on a penny, to pull off my boots.
What has befallen Bahadur Khan? said I.
He was bitten by a snake and died; the rest the sahib knows, was the answer.
And how much of the matter hast thou known?
As much as might be gathered from one coming in the twilight to seek satisfaction. Gently, sahib. Let me pull off those boots.
I had just settled to the sleep of exhaustion when I heard Strickland shouting from his side of the house:
Tietjens has come back to her room!
And so she had. The great deer-hound was couched on her own bedstead, on her own blanket, and in the next room the idle, empty ceiling-cloth wagged light-heartedly as it flailed on the table.
Now, from such a King, always remembering that he possessed one veritable elephant, and could count his descent for twelve hundred years, I expected, when it was my fate to wander through his dominions, no more than mere license to live.
The night had closed in rain, and rolling clouds blotted out the lights of the villages in the valley. Forty miles away, untouched by cloud or storm, the white shoulder of Donga Pathe Mountain of the Council of the Godsupheld the Evening Star. The monkeys sang sorrowfully to each other as they hunted for dry roosts in the fern-wreathed trees, and the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die. The clouds closed and the smell went away, and there remained nothing in all the world except chilling white mist and the boom of the Sutlej river racing through the valley below.
A fat-tailed sheep, who did not want to die, bleated piteously at my tent door. He was scuffling with the Prime Minister and the Director-General of Public Education, and he was a royal gift to me and my camp servants. I expressed my thanks suitably, and asked if I might have audience of the King. The Prime Minister readjusted his turban, which had fallen off in the struggle, and assured me that the King would be very pleased to see me. Therefore I despatched two bottles as a foretaste, and when the sheep had entered upon another incarnation went to the Kings Palace through the wet. He had sent his army to escort me, but the army stayed to talk with my cook. Soldiers are very much alike all the world over.
The Palace was a four-roomed, and white-washed mud and timber-house, the finest in all the hills for a days journey. The King was dressed in a purple velvet jacket, white muslin trousers, and a saffronyellow turban of price. He gave me audience in a little carpeted room opening off the palace courtyard which was occupied by the Elephant of State. The great beast was sheeted and anchored from trunk to tail, and the curve of his back stood out grandly against the mist.
The Prime Minister and the Director-General of Public Education were present to introduce me, but all the court had been dismissed, lest the two bottles aforesaid should corrupt their morals. The King cast a wreath of heavy-scented flowers round my neck as I bowed, and inquired how my honoured presence had the felicity to be. I said that through seeing his auspicious countenance the mists of the night had turned into sunshine, and that by reason of his beneficent sheep his good deeds would be remembered by the Gods. He said that since I had set my magnificent foot in his Kingdom the crops would probably yield seventy per cent more than the average. I said that the fame of the King had reached to the four corners of the earth, and that the nations gnashed their teeth when they heard daily of the glories of his realm and the wisdom of his moon-like Prime Minister and lotus-like Director-General of Public Education.
Then we sat down on clean white cushions, and I was at the Kings right hand. Three minutes later he was telling me that the state of the maize crop was something disgraceful, and that the Railway companies would not pay him enough for his timber. The talk shifted to and fro with the bottles, and we discussed very many stately things, and the King became confidential on the subject of Government generally. Most of all he dwelt on the shortcomings of one of his subjects, who, from all I could gather, had been paralyzing the executive.
In the old days, said the King, I could have ordered the Elephant yonder to trample him to death. Now I must een send him seventy miles across the hills to be tried, and his keep would be upon the State. The Elephant eats everything.
What be the mans crimes, Rajah Sahib? said I.
Firstly, he is an outlander and no man of mine own people. Secondly, since of my favour I gave him land upon his first coming, he refuses to pay revenue. Am I not the lord of the earth, above and below, entitled by right and custom to one-eighth of the crop? Yet this devil, establishing himself, refuses to pay a single tax; and he brings a poisonous spawn of babes.
Cast him into jail, I said.
Sahib, the King answered, shifting a little on the cushions, once and only once in these forty years sickness came upon me so that I was not able to go abroad. In that hour I made a vow to my God that I would never again cut man or woman from the light of the sun and the air of God; for I perceived the nature of the punishment. How can I break my vow? Were it only the lopping of a hand or a foot I should not delay. But even that is impossible now that the English have rule. One or another of my peoplehe looked obliquely at the Director-General of Public Educationwould at once write a letter to the Viceroy, and perhaps I should be deprived of my ruffle of drums.
He unscrewed the mouthpiece of his silver water-pipe, fitted a plain amber mouthpiece, and passed his pipe to me. Not content with refusing revenue, he continued, this outlander refuses also the begar (this was the corvée or forced labour on the roads) and stirs my people up to the like treason. Yet he is, when he wills, an expert log-snatcher. There is none better or bolder among my people to clear a block of the river when the logs stick fast.
But he worships strange Gods, said the Prime Minister deferentially.
For that I have no concern, said the King, who was as tolerant as Akbar in matters of belief. To each man his own God and the fire or Mother Earth for us all at last. It is the rebellion that offends me.
The King has an army, I suggested. Has not the King burned the mans house and left him naked to the night dews?
Nay, a hut is a hut, and it holds the life of a man. But once, I sent my army against him when his excuses became wearisome. of their heads he brake three across the top with a stick. The other two men ran away. Also the guns would not shoot.
I had seen the equipment of the infantry. One-third of it was an old muzzle-loading fowling-piece, with a ragged rust-hole where the nipples should have been, one-third a wire-bound match-lock with a worm-eaten stock, and one-third a four-bore flint duck-gun without a flint.
But it is to be remembered, said the King, reaching out for the bottle, that he is a very expert log-snatcher and a man of a merry face. What shall I do to him, Sahib?
This was interesting. The timid hill-folk would as soon have refused taxes to their King as revenues to their Gods.
If it be the Kings permission, I said, I will not strike my tents till the third day and I will see this man. The mercy of the King is God-like, and rebellion is like unto the sin of witchcraft. Moreover, both the bottles and another be empty.
You have my leave to go, said the King.
Next morning a crier went through the State proclaiming that there was a log-jam on the river and that it behoved all loyal subjects to remove it. The people poured down from their villages to the moist, warm valley of poppy-fields; and the King and I went with them. Hundreds of dressed deodar-logs had caught on a snag of rock, and the river was bringing down more logs every minute to complete the blockade. The water snarled and wrenched and worried at the timber, and the population of the State began prodding the nearest logs with a pole in the hope of starting a general movement. Then there went up a shout of Namgay Doola! Namgay Doola! and a large red-haired villager hurried up, stripping off his clothes as he ran.
That is he. That is the rebel, said the King. Now will the dam be cleared.
But why has he red hair? I asked, since red hair among hill-folks is as common as blue or green.
He is an outlander, said the King. Well done! Oh, well done!
Namgay Doola had scrambled out on the jam and was clawing out the butt of a log with a rude sort of boat-hook. It slid forward slowly as an alligator moves, three or four others followed it, and the green water spouted through the gaps they had made. Then the villagers howled and shouted and scrambled across the logs, pulling and pushing the obstinate timber, and the red head of Namgay Doola was chief among them all. The logs swayed and chafed and groaned as fresh consignments from upstream battered the now weakening dam. All gave way at last in a smother of foam, racing logs, bobbing black heads and confusion indescribable. The river tossed everything before it. I saw the red head go down with the last remnants of the jam and disappear between the great grinding tree-trunks. It rose close to the bank and blowing like a grampus. Namgay Doola wrung the water out of his eyes and made obeisance to the King. I had time to observe him closely. The virulent redness of his shock head and beard was most startling; and in the thicket of hair wrinkled above high cheek bones shone two very merry blue eyes. He was indeed an outlander, but yet a Thibetan in language, habit, and attire. He spoke the Lepcha dialect with an indescribable softening of the gutturals. It was not so much a lisp as an accent.
Whence comest thou? I asked.
From Thibet. He pointed across the hills and grinned. That grin went straight to my heart. Mechanically I held out my hand and Namgay Doola shook it. No pure Thibetan would have understood the meaning of the gesture. He went away to look for his clothes, and as he climbed back to his village, I heard a joyous yell that seemed unaccountably familiar. It was the whooping of Namgay Doola.
You see now, said the King, why I would not kill him. He is a bold man among my logs, but, and he shook his head like a schoolmaster, I know that before long there will be complaints of him in the court. Let us return to the Palace and do justice. It was that Kings custom to judge his subjects every day between eleven and three oclock. I saw him decide equitably in weighty matters of trespass, slander, and a little wife-stealing. Then his brow clouded and he summoned me.
Again it is Namgay Doola, he said despairingly. Not content with refusing revenue on his own part, he has bound half his village by an oath to the like treason. Never before has such a thing befallen me! Nor are my taxes heavy.
A rabbit-faced villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind his ear, advanced trembling. He had been in the conspiracy, but had told everything and hoped for the Kings favour.
O King, said I. If it be the Kings will let this matter stand over till the morning. Only the Gods can do right swiftly, and it may be that yonder villager has lied.
Nay, for I know the nature of Namgay Doola; but since a guest asks let the matter remain. Wilt thou speak harshly to this red-headed outlander. He may listen to thee.
I made an attempt that very evening, but for the life of me I could not keep my countenance. Namgay Doola grinned persuasively, and began to tell me about a big brown bear in a poppy-field by the river. Would I care to shoot it? I spoke austerely on the sin of conspiracy, and the certainty of punishment. Namgay Doolas face clouded for a moment. Shortly afterwards he withdrew from my tent, and I heard him singing to himself softly among the pines. The words were unintelligible to me, but the tune, like his liquid insinuating speech, seemed the ghost of something strangely familiar.
Dir hané mard-i-yemen dir To weeree ala gee, |
sang Namgay Doola again and again, and I racked my brain for that lost tune. It was not till after dinner that I discovered some-one had cut a square foot of velvet from the centre of my best camera-cloth. This made me so angry that I wandered down the valley in the hope of meeting the big brown bear. I could hear him grunting like a discontented pig in the poppy-field, and I waited shoulder deep in the dew-dripping Indian corn to catch him after his meal. The moon was at full and drew out the rich scent of the tasselled crop. Then I heard the anguished bellow of a Himalayan cow, one of the little black crummies no bigger than Newfoundland dogs. Two shadows that looked like a bear and her cub hurried past me. I was in act to fire when I saw that they had each a brilliant red head. The lesser animal was trailing some rope behind it that left a dark track on the path. They passed within six feet of me, and the shadow of the moonlight lay velvet-black on their faces. Velvet-black was exactly the word, for by all the powers of moonlight they were masked in the velvet of my camera-cloth! I marvelled and went to bed.
Next morning the Kingdom was in uproar. Namgay Doola, men said, had gone forth in the night and with a sharp knife had cut off the tail of a cow belonging to the rabbit-faced villager who had betrayed him. It was sacrilege unspeakable against the Holy Cow. The State desired his blood, but he had retreated into his hut, barricaded the doors and windows with big stones, and defied the world.
The King and I and the Populace approached the hut cautiously. There was no hope of capturing the man without loss of life, for from a hole in the wall projected the muzzle of an extremely well-cared-for gunthe only gun in the State that could shoot. Namgay Doola had narrowly missed a villager just before we came up. The Standing Army stood. It could do no more, for when it advanced pieces of sharp shale flew from the windows. To these were added from time to time showers of scalding water. We saw red heads bobbing up and down in the hut. The family of Namgay Doola were aiding their sire, and bloodcurdling yells of defiance were the only answers to our prayers.
Never, said the King, puffing, has such a thing befallen my State. Next year I will certainly buy a little cannon. He looked at me imploringly.
Is there any priest in the Kingdom to whom he will listen? said I, for a light was beginning to break upon me.
He worships his own God, said the Prime Minister. We can starve him out.
Let the white man approach, said Namgay Doola from within. All others I will kill. Send me the white man.
The door was thrown open and I entered the smoky interior of a Thibetan hut crammed with children. And every child had flaming red hair. A raw cows-tail lay on the floor, and by its side two pieces of black velvetmy black velvetrudely hacked into the semblance of masks.
And what is this shame, Namgay Doola? said I.
He grinned more winningly than ever. There is no shame, said he. I did but cut off the tail of that mans cow. He betrayed me. I was minded to shoot him, Sahib. But not to death. Indeed not to death. Only in the legs.
And why at all, since it is the custom to pay revenue to the King? Why at all?
By the God of my father I cannot tell, said Namgay Doola.
And who was thy father?
The same that had this gun. He showed me his weapona Tower musket bearing date 1832 and the stamp of the Honourable East India Company.
And thy fathers name? said I.
Timlay Doola, said he. At the first, I being then a little child, it is in my mind that he wore a red coat.
Of that I have no doubt. But repeat the name of thy father thrice or four times.
He obeyed, and I understood whence the puzzling accent in his speech came. Thimla Dhula, said he excitedly. To this hour I worship his God.
May I see that God?
In a little whileat twilight time.
Rememberest thou aught of thy fathers speech?
It is long ago. But there is one word which he said often. Thus Shun. Then I and my brethren stood upon our feet, our hands to our sides. Thus.
Even so. And what was thy mother?
A woman of the hills. We be Lepchas of Darjeeling, but me they call an outlander because my hair is as thou seest.
The Thibetan woman, his wife, touched him on the arm gently. The long parley outside the fort had lasted far into the day. It was now close upon twilightthe hour of the Angelus. Very solemnly, the red-headed brats rose from the floor and formed a semicircle. Namgay Doola laid his gun against the wall, lighted a little oil lamp, and set it before a recess in the wall. Pulling aside a curtain of dirty cloth he revealed a worn brass crucifix leaning against the helmet-badge of a long forgotten East India regiment. Thus did my father, he said, crossing himself clumsily. The wife and children followed suit. Then all together they struck up the wailing chant that I heard on the hillside
Dir hané mard-i-yemen dir To weeree ala gee. |
I was puzzled no longer. Again and again they crooned as if their hearts would break, their version of the chorus of the Wearing of the Green
Theyre hanging men and women too, For the wearing of the green. |
A diabolical inspiration came to me. One of the brats, a boy about eight years old, was watching me as he sang. I pulled out a rupee, held the coin between finger and thumb, and lookedonly lookedat the gun against the wall. A grin of brilliant and perfect comprehension overspread the face of the child. Never for an instant stopping the song he held out his hand for the money, and then slid the gun to my hand. I might have shot Namgay Doola as he chanted. But I was satisfied. The blood-instinct of the race held true. Namgay Doola drew the curtain across the recess. Angelus was over.
Thus my father sang. There was much more, but I have forgotten, and I do not know the purport of these words, but it may be that the God will understand. I am not of this people, and I will not pay revenue.
And why?
Again that soul-compelling grin. What occupation would be to me between crop and crop? It is better than scaring bears. But these people do not understand. He picked the masks from the floor, and looked in my face as simply as a child.
By what road didst thou attain knowledge to make these devilries? I said, pointing.
I cannot tell. I am but a Lepcha of Darjeeling, and yet the stuff
Which thou hast stolen.
Nay, surely. Did I steal? I desired it so. The stuffthe stuffwhat else should I have done with the stuff? He twisted the velvet between his fingers.
But the sin of maiming the cowconsider that?
That is true; but oh, Sahib, that man betrayed me and I had no thoughtbut the heifers tail waved in the moonlight and I had my knife. What else should I have done? The tail came off ere I was aware. Sahib, thou knowest more than I.
That is true, said I. Stay within the door. I go to speak to the King.
The population of the State were ranged on the hillsides. I went forth and spoke to the King.
O King, said I. Touching this man there be two courses open to thy wisdom. Thou canst either hang him from a tree, he and his brood, till there remains no hair that is red within the land.
Nay, said the King. Why should I hurt the little children?
They had poured out of the hut door and were making plump obeisance to everybody. Namgay Doola waited with his gun across his arm.
Or thou canst, discarding the impiety of the cow-maiming, raise him to honour in thy Army. He comes of a race that will not pay revenue. A red flame is in his blood which comes out at the top of his head in that glowing hair. Make him chief of the Army. Give him honour as may befall, and full allowance of work, but look to it, O King, that neither he nor his hold a foot of earth from thee henceforward. Feed him with words and favour, and also liquor from certain bottles that thou knowest of, and he will be a bulwark of defence. But deny him even a tuft of grass for his own. This is the nature that God has given him. Moreover he has brethren
The State groaned unanimously.
But if his brethren come, they will surely fight with each other till they die; or else the one will always give information concerning the other. Shall he be of thy Army, O King? Choose.
The King bowed his head, and I said, Come forth, Namgay Doola, and command the Kings Army. Thy name shall no more be Namgay in the mouths of men, but Patsay Doola, for as thou hast said, I know.
Then Namgay Doola, new christened Patsay Doola, son of Timlay Doola, which is Tim Doolan gone very wrong indeed, clasped the Kings feet, cuffed the standing Army, and hurried in an agony of contrition from temple to temple, making offerings for the sin of cattle maiming.
And the King was so pleased with my perspicacity that he offered to sell me a village for twenty pounds sterling. But I buy no villages in the Himalayas so long as one red head flares between the tail of the heaven-climbing glacier and the dark birch-forest.
I know that breed.
Did you ever hear o the Lang Men o Larut? he asked when the Man from Orizava had finished a story of an aboriginal giant discovered in the wilds of Brazil. There was never story yet passed the lips of teller but the Man from Orizava could cap it.
No, we never did, we responded with one voice. The Man from Orizava watched the Chief keenly, as a possible rival.
Im not telling the story for the sake of talking merely, said the Chief, but as a warning against betting, unless you bet on a perrfect certainty. The Lang Men o Larut were just a certainty. I have had talk wi them. Now Larut, you will understand, is a dependency, or it may be an outlying possession, o the island o Penang, and there they will get you tin and manganese, an it may hap mica, and all manner o meenerals. Larut is a great place.
But what about the population? said the Man from Orizava.
The population, said the Chief slowly, were few but enorrmous. You must understand that, exceptin the tin-mines, there is no special inducement to Europeans to reside in Larut. The climate is warm and remarkably like the climate o Calcutta; and in regard to Calcutta, it cannot have escaped your obsairvation that
Calcutta isnt Larut; and weve only just come from it, protested the Man from Orizava. Theres a meteorological department in Calcutta, too.
Ay, but theres no meteorological department in Larut. Each man is a law to himself. Some drink whisky, and some drink brandipanee, and some drink cocktailsvara bad for the coats o the stomach is a cocktailand some drink sangaree, so I have been credibly informed; but one and all they sweat like the packing of a piston-head on a fourrteen-days voyage with the screw racing half her time. But, as I was saying, the population o Larut was five all told of Englishthat is to say, Scotchan Im Scotch, ye know, said the Chief.
The Man from Orizava lit another cigarette, and waited patiently. It was hopeless to hurry the Chief Engineer.
I am not pretending to account for the population o Larut being laid down according to such fabulous dimensions. O the five white men engaged upon the extraction o tin ore and mercantile pursuits, there were three o the sons o Anak. Wait while I remember. Lammitter was the first by two inchesa giant in the land, an a terreefic man to cross in his ways. From heel to head he was six feet nine inches, and proportionately built across and through the thickness of his body. Six good feet nine inchesan overbearin man. Next to him, and I have forgotten his precise business, was Sandy Vowle. And he was six feet seven, but lean and lathy, and it was more in the elasteecity of his neck that the height lay than in any honesty o bone and sinew. Five feet and a few odd inches may have been his real height. The remainder came out when he held up his head, and six feet seven he was upon the door-sills. I took his measure in chalk standin on a chair. And next to him, but a proportionately made man, ruddy and of a fair countenance, was Jack Coanthat they called the Fir Cone. He was but six feet five, and a child beside Lammitter and Vowle. When the three walked out together, they made a scunner run through the colony o Larut. The Malays ran round them as though they had been the giant trees in the Yosemite Valleythese three Lang Men o Larut. It was perfectly ridiculousa lusus naturæthat one little place should have contained maybe the three tallest ordinar men upon the face o the earth.
Obsairve now the order o things. For it led to the finest big drink in Larut, and six sore heads the morn that endured for a week. I am against immoderate liquor, but the event to follow was a justification. You must understand that many coasting steamers call at Larut wi strangers o the mercantile profession. In the spring time, when the young cocoa-nuts were ripening, and the trees o the forests were putting forth their leaves, there came an American man to Larut, and he was six feet three, or it may have been four, in his stockings. He came on business from Sacramento, but he stayed for pleasure wi the Lang Men o Larut. Less than a half o the population were ordinar in their girth and stature, ye will understandHowson and Nailor, merchants, five feet nine or thereabouts. He had business with those two, and he stood above them from the six feet threedom o his height till they went to drink. In the course o conversation he said, as tall men will, things about his height, and the trouble of it to him. That was his pride o the flesh.
As the longest man in the island he said, but there they took him up and asked if he were sure.
I say I am the longest man in the island, he said, and on that Ill bet my substance.
They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and there, and put it aside while they called Jock Coan from his house, near by among the fireflies winking.
Hows a wi you? said Jock, and came in by the side o the Sacramento profligate, two inches, or it may have been one, taller than he.
Youre long, said the man opening his eyes. But I am longer. An they sent a whistle through the night an howkit out Sandie Vowle from his bit bungalow, and he came in an stood by the side o Jock, an the pair just fillit the room to the ceiling-cloth.
The Sacramento man was a euchre-player and a most profane sweerer. You hold both Bowers, he said, but the Joker is with me.
Fair an softly, says Nailor. Jock, whaurs Lang Lammitter?
Here, says that man, putting his leg through the window and coming in like an anaconda o the desert furlong by furlong, one foot in Penang and one in Batavia, and a hand in North Borneo it may be.
Are you suited? said Nailor, when the hinder end o Lang Lammitter was slidden through the sill an the head of Lammitter was lost in the smoke away above.
The American man took out his card and put it on the table. Esdras B. Longer is my name, America is my nation, Frisco is my resting-place, but this here beats Creation, said he. Boys, giantsside-show giantsI minded to slide out of my bet if I had been overtopped, on the strength of the riddle on this paste-board. I would have done it if you had topped me even by three inches, but when it comes to feetyardsmiles, I am not the man to shirk the biggest drink that ever made the travellers-joy palm blush with virginal indignation, or the orang-outang and the perambulating dyak howl with envy. Set them up and continue till the final conclusion.
O mon, I tell you twas an awful sight to see those four giants threshing about the house and the island, and tearin down the pillars thereof an throwing palm-trees broadcast, and currling their long legs round the hills o Larut. An awfu sight! I was there. I did not mean to tell you, but its out now. I was not overcome, for I een sat me down under the pieces o the table at four the morn an meditated upon the strangeness of things.
Losh, yons the breakfast-bell!
It would he well for you, mine friend, if you was a liddle seasick, said Hans Breitmann, pausing by the cage. You haf too much Ego in your Cosmos.
The orang-outangs arm slid out negligently from between the bars. No one would have believed that it would make a sudden snake-like rush at the Germans breast. The thin silk of the sleeping-suit tore out: Hans stepped back unconcernedly, to pluck a banana from a bunch hanging close to one of the boats.
Too much Ego, said be, peeling the fruit and offering it to the caged devil, who was rending the silk to tatters.
Then we laid out our bedding in the bows, among the sleeping Lascars, to catch any breeze that the pace of the ship might give us. The sea was like smoky oil., except where it turned to fire under our forefoot and whirled back into the dark in smears of dull flame. There was a thunderstorm some miles away: we could see the glimmer of the lightning. The ships cow, distressed by the heat and the smell of the ape-beast in the cage, lowed unhappily from time to time in exactly the same key as the lookout man at the bows answered the hourly call from the bridge. The trampling tune of the engines was very distinct, and the jarring of the ash-lift, as it was tipped into the sea, hurt the procession of hushed noise. Hans lay down by my side and lighted a good-night cigar. This was naturally the beginning of conversation. He owned a voice as soothing as the wash of the sea, and stores of experiences as vast as the sea itself; for his business in life was to wander up and down the world, collecting orchids and wild beasts and ethnological specimens for German and American dealers. I watched the glowing end of his cigar wax and wane in the gloom, as the sentences rose and fell, till I was nearly asleep. The orang-outang, troubled by some dream of the forests of his freedom, began to yell like a soul in purgatory, and to wrench madly at the bars of the cage.
If he was out now dere would not be much of us left hereabouts, said Hans, lazily. He screams good. See, now, how I shall tame him when he stops himself.
There was a pause in the outcry, and from Hans mouth came an imitation of a snakes hiss, so perfect that I almost sprung to my feet. The sustained murderous sound ran along the deck, and the wrenching at the bars ceased. The orang-outang was quaking in an ecstasy of pure terror.
Dot stop him, said Hans. I learned dot trick in Mogoung Tanjong when I was collecting liddle monkeys for some peoples in Berlin. Efery one in der world is afraid of der monkeys except der snake. So I blay snake against monkey, and he keep quite still. Dere was too much Ego in his Cosmos. Dot is der soul-custom of monkeys. Are you asleep, or will you listen, and I will tell a dale dot you shall not pelief?
Theres no tale in the wide world that I cant believe, I said.
If you have learned pelief you haf learned somedings. Now I shall try your pelief. Good! When I was collecting dose liddle monkeys-it was in 79 or 80, und I was in der islands of der Archipelagoover dere in der darkhe pointed southward to New Guinea generallyMein Gott! I would sooner collect life red devils than liddle monkeys. When dey do not bite off your thumbs dey are always dying from nostalgiahomesickfor dey haf der imperfect soul, which is midway arrested in defelopmentund too much Ego. I was dere for nearly a year, und dere I found a man dot was called Bertran. He was a Frenchman, und he was a goot mannaturalist to the bone. Dey said he was an escaped convict, but he was a naturalist, und dot was enough for me. He would call all her life beasts from der forests, und dey would come. I said he was St. Francis of Assisi in a new dransmigration produced, und he laughed und said he hal never preach to der fishes. He sold dem for tripang-beche-de-mer.
Und dot man, who was king of beasts-tamer men, he had in der house shush such anoder as dot devil-animal in der cagea great orang-outang dot thought he was a man. He haf found him when he was a childder orang-outangund he was child and brother and opera comique all round to Bertran. He had his room in dot housenot a cage, but a roommit a bed and sheets, and he would go to bed and get up in der morning and smoke his cigar und eat his dinner mit Bertran, und walk mit him hand-in-hand, which. was most horrible. Herr Gott! I haf seen dot beast throw himself back in his chair and laugh when Bertran haf made fun of me. He was not a beast; he was a man, and he talked to Bertran, und Bertran comprehended, for I bave seen dem. Und he was always politeful to me except when I talk too long to Bertran und say nodings at all to him. Den he would pull me awaydis great, dark devil, mit his enormous pawshush as if I was a child. He was not a beast, he was a man. Dis I saw pefore I know him three months, und Bertran he haf saw the same; and Bimi, der orang-outang, baf understood us both, mit his cigar between his big-dog teeth und der blue gum.
I was dere a year, dere und at dere oder islandssomedimes for monkeys and somedimes for butterflies und orchits. One time Bertran says to me dot he will be married, because he haf found a girl dot was goot, and he inquire if this marrying idea was right. I would not say, pecause it was not me dot was going to be married. Den he go off courting der girlshe was a half-caste French girl- very pretty. Haf you got a new light for my cigar? Oof! Very pretty. Only I say Haf you thought of Bimi? If he pulls me away when I talk to you, what will he do to your wife? He will pull her in pieces. If I was you, Bertran, I would gif my wife for wedding present der stuff figure of Bimi. By dot time I bad learned somedings about der monkey peoples. Shoot him? says Bertran. He is your beast, I said; if he was mine he would be shot now.
Den I felt at der back of my neck der fingers of Bimi. Mein Gott! I tell you dot he talked through dose fingers. It was der deaf-and-dumb alphabet all gomplete. He slide his hairy arm round my neck, and he tilt up my chin and look into my face, shust to see if I understood his talk so well as he understood mine.
See now dere! says Bertran, und you would shoot him while he is cuddling you? Dot is der Teuton ingrate!
But I knew dot I had made Bimi a lifes enemy, pecause his fingers haf talk murder through the back of my neck. Next dime I see Bimi dere was a pistol in my belt, und he touch it once, and I open de breech to show him it was loaded. He haf seen der liddle monkeys killed in der woods, and he understood.
So Bertran he was married, and he forgot clean about Bimi dot was skippin alone on the beach mit der haf of a human soul in his belly. I was see him skip, und he took a big bough und thrash der sand till he haf made a great hole like a grave. So I says to Bertran For any sakes, kill Bimi. He is mad mit der jealousy.
Bertran haf said: He is not mad at all. He haf obey and love my wife, und if she speaks he wall get her slippers, und he looked at his wife across der room. She was a very pretty girl.
Den I said to him: Dost thou pretend to know monkeys und dis beast dot is lashing himself mad upon der sands, pecause you do not talk to him? Shoot him when he comes to der house, for he haf der light in his eyes dot means killingund killing. Bimi come to der house, but dere was no light in his eyes. It was all put away, cunningso cunningund he fetch der girl her slippers, and Bertran turn to me und say: Dost thou know him in nine months more dan I haf known him in twelve years? Shall a child stab his fader? I have fed him, und he was my child. Do not speak this nonsense to my wife or to me any more.
Dot next day Bertran came to my house to help me make some wood cases for der specimens, und he tell me dot he haf left his wife a liddle while mit Bimi in der garden. Den I finish my cases quick, und I say: Let us go to your house und get a trink. He laugh und say: Come along, dry mans.
His wife was not in der garden, und Bimi did not come when Bertran called. Und his wife did not come when he called, und he knocked at her bedroom door und dot was shut tight-locked. Den he looked at me, und his face was white. I broke down der door mit my shoulder, und der thatch of der roof was torn into a great hole, und der sun came in upon der floor. Haf you ever seen paper in der waste-basket, or cards at whist on der table scattered? Dere was no wife dot could be seen. I tell you dere was noddings in dot room dot might be a woman. Dere was stuff on der floor, und dot was all. I looked at dese things und I was very sick; but Bertran looked a little longer at what was upon the floor und der walls, und der hole in der thatch. Den he pegan to laugh, soft and low, und I know und thank God dot he was mad. He nefer cried, he nefer prayed. He stood still in der doorway und laugh to him-self. Den he said: She haf locked herself in dis room, and he haf torn up der thatch. Fi donc. Dot is so. We will mend der thatch und wait for Bimi. He will surely come.
I tell you we waited ten days in dot house, after der room was made into a room again, and once or twice we saw Bimi comm a liddle way from der woods. He was afraid pecause he haf done wrong. Bertran called him when he was come to look on the tenth day, und Bimi come skipping along der beach und making noises, mit a long piece of black hair in his hands. Den Bertran laugh and say, Fi donc! shust as if it was a glass broken upon der table; und Bimi come nearer, und Bertran was honey-sweet in his voice and laughed to himself. For three days he made love to Bimi, pecause Bimi would not let himself be touched. Den Bimi come to dinner at der same table mit us, und der hair on his hands was all black und thick mitmit what had dried on his hands. Bertran gave him sangaree till Bimi was drunk and stupid, und den
Hans paused to puff at his cigar.
And then? said I.
Und den Bertran kill him with his hands, und I go for a walk upon der beach. It was Bertrans own piziness. When I come back der ape he was dead, und Bertran he was dying abofe him; but still he laughed a liddle und low, and he was quite content. Now you know der formula uf der strength of der orang-outangit is more as seven to one in relation to man. But Bertran, he haf killed Bimi mit sooch dings as Gott gif him. Dot was der mericle.
The infernal clamor in the cage recommenced. Aba! Dot friend of ours haf still too much Ego in his Cosmos, Be quiet, thou!
Hans hissed long and venomously. We could hear the great beast quaking in his cage.
But why in the world didnt you help Bertran instead of letting him be killed? I asked.
My friend, said Hans, composedly stretching himself to slumber, it was not nice even to mineself dot I should lif after I had seen dot room wit der hole in der thatch. Und Bertran, he was her husband. Good-night, und sleep well,
I haf washed, said he in a voice of thunder, but, dere is no use washing on these hell-seas. Look at meI am still all wet und schweatin. It is der tea dot makes me so. Boy, bring me Bilsener on ice.
You will die if you drink beer before breakfast, said one man. Beer is the worst thing in the world for
Ya, I knowder liver. I haf no liver, und I shall not die. At least I will not die obon dese benny sdeamers dot haf no beer fit to trink. If I should haf died, I will haf don so a hoondert dimes before nowin Shermany, in New York, in Japon, in Assam, und all over der inside barts of South Amerique. Also in Shamaica should I haf died or in Siam, but I am here; und der are my orchits dot I have drafelled all the vorld round to find.
He pointed towards the wheel, where, in two rough wooden boxes, lay a mass of shrivelled vegetation, supposed by all the ship to represent Assam orchids of fabulous value.
Now, orchids do not grow in the main streets of towns, and Hans Breitmann had gone far to get his. There was nothing that he had not collected that year, from kingcrabs to white kangaroos.
Lisden now, said he, after he had been speaking for not much more than ten minutes without a pause; Lisden und I will dell you a sdory to show how bad und worse it is to go gollectin und belief vot anoder fool haf said. Dis was in Uraguay which was in AmeriqueNorth or Sout you would not knowund I was hoontin orchits und aferydings else dot I could back in my kanastersdot is drafelling sbecimen-gaces. Dere vas den mit me anoder manReingelder, dot vas his nameund he vas hoontin also, but only coral-snakesjoost Uraguay coral-snakesaferykind you could imagine. I dell you a coral-snake is a peautyall red und white like coral dot has been gestrung in bands upon der neck of a girl. Dere is one snake howefer dot we who gollect know ash der Sherman Flag, pecause id is red und plack und white, joost like a sausage mit druffles. Reingelder he was naturalistgoot mangoot trinkerbetter as me! By Gott, said Reingelder, I will get a Sherman Flag snake or I will die. Und we toorned all Uraguay upside-behint all pecause of dot Sherman Flag.
Von day when we was in none knows whereshwingin in our hummocks among der woods, oop comes a natif woman mit a Sherman Flag in a bickle-bottlemy bickle-bottleund we both fell from our hummocks flat ubon our potwhat you call stomachmit shoy at dis thing. Now I was gollectin orchits also, und I knowed dot der idee of life to Reingelder vas dis Sherman Flag. Derefore I bicked myselfs oop und I said, Reingelder dot is your find.Hearts true friend, dou art a goot man, said Reingelder, und mit dot he obens der bickle-bottle, und der natif woman she shqueals, Herr Gott! It will bite. I saidpecause in Uraguay a man must be careful of der insectsReingelder shpifligate her in der alcohol und den she will be all right.Nein, said Reingelder, I will der shnake alife examine. Dere is no fear. Der coral-snakes are mitout shting-apparatus brofided. Boot I looked at her het, und she vas der het of a boison-shnakeder true viper cranium, narrow und contract. It is not good, said I, She may bite und denwe are tree hoondert mile from aferywheres. Broduce der alcohol und bickle him alife. Reingelder he had him in his handgrawlin und grawlin as slow as a woorm und dwice as guiet. Nonsense, says Reingelder. Yates haf said dot not von of der coral-snakes haf der sack of boison. Yates vas der crate authorité ubon der reptilia of Sout Amerique. He haf written a book. You do not know, of course, but he vas a crate authorité.
I gum my eye upon der Sherman Flag, grawlin und grawlin in Reingelders fist, und der het vas not der het of innocence. Mein Gott, I said. It is you dot will get der sackder sack from dis life here pelow!
Den you may haf der snake, says Reingelder, pattin it ubon her het. See now, I will show you vat Yates haf written!
Und mit dot he went indo his dent, unt brung out his big book of Yates; der Sherman Flag grawlin in his fist. Yates haf said, said Reingelder, und he throwed oben der dook in der fork of his fist und read der passage, proofin conglusivement dot nefer coral-snake bite vas boison. Den he shut der book mit a bang, und dot shqueeze der Sherman Flag, und she nip once und dwice.
Der liddle fool he haf bit me, says Reingelder.
Dese things was before we know apout der permanganat-potash injection. I was discomfordable.
Die oop der arm, Reingelder, said I, und trink whisky ontil you can no more think.
Trink ten tousand tevils! I will go to dinner, said Reingelder, und he put her afay, und it vas very red mit emotion.
We lifed upon soup, horse-flesh, und beans for dinner, but before we vas eaten der soup, Reingelder he haf hold of his arm und cry, It is genumben to der clavicle. I am a dead man; und Yates he haf lied in brint!
I dell you it vas most sad, for der symbtoms dot came vas all dose of strychnine. He vas doubled into big knots, und den undoubled, und den redoubled mooch worse dan pefore, und he frothed. I vas mit him, saying Reingelder dost dou know me? but he himself, der inward gonciousness part, was peyond knowledge, und so I know he vas not in bain. Den he wrop himself oop in von dremendous knot und den he diedall alone mit me in Uraguay. I was sorry for I lofed Reingelder, und I puried him, und den I took der coral-snakedot Sherman Flagso bad und dreacherous, und I bickled him alife.
So I got him: und so I lost Reingelder.
When a rich relative died, he found himself wealthy beyond any reasonable expectation that he had entertained in his previous career, which had been a chequered and evil one. Indeed, long before the legacy came to him, there existed in the brain of John Hay a little clouda momentary obscuration of thought that came and went almost before he could realise that there was any solution of continuity. So do the bats flit round the eaves of a house to show that the darkness is falling. He entered upon great possessions in money, land, and houses; but behind his delight stood a ghost that cried out that his enjoyment of these things should not be of long duration. It was the ghost of the rich relative, who had been permitted to return to earth to torture his nephew into the grave. Wherefore, under the spur of this constant reminder, John Hay, always preserving the air of heavy business-like stolidity that hid the shadow on his mind, turned investments, houses, and lands into sovereignsrich, round, red, English sovereigns, each one worth twenty shillings. Lands may become valueless, and houses fly heavenward on the wings of red flame, but till the Day of Judgment a sovereign will always be a sovereignthat is to say, a king of pleasures.
Possessed of his sovereigns, John Hay would fain have spent them one by one on such coarse amusements as his soul loved; but he was haunted by the instant fear of Death; for the ghost of his relative stood in the hall of his house close to the hat-rack, shouting up the stairway that life was short, that there was no hope of increase of days, and that the undertakers were already roughing out his nephews coffin. John Hay was generally alone in the house, and even when he had company, his friends could not hear the clamorous uncle. The shadow inside his brain grew larger and blacker. His fear of death was driving John Hay mad.
Then, from the deeps of his mind, where he had stowed away all his discarded information, rose to light the scientific fact of the easterly journey. On the next occasion that his uncle shouted up the stairway urging him to make haste and live, a shriller voice cried, Who goes round the world once easterly, gains one day.
His growing diffidence and distrust of mankind made John Hay unwilling to give this precious message of hope to his friends. They might take it up and analyse it. He was sure it was true, but it would pain him acutely were rough hands to examine it too closely. To him alone of all the toiling generations of mankind had the secret of immortality been vouchsafed. It would be impiousagainst all the designs of the Creatorto set mankind hurrying eastward. Besides, this would crowd the steamers inconveniently, and John Hay wished of all things to be alone. If he could get round the world in two monthssome one of whom he had read, he could not remember the name, had covered the passage in eighty dayshe would gain a clear day; and by steadily continuing to do it for thirty years, would gain one hundred and eighty days, or nearly the half of a year. It would not be much, but in course of time, as civilisation advanced, and the Euphrates Valley Railway was opened, he could improve the pace.
Armed with many sovereigns, John Hay, in the thirty-fifth year of his age, set forth on his travels, two voices bearing him company from Dover as he sailed to Calais. Fortune favoured him. The Euphrates Valley Railway was newly opened, and he was the first man who took ticket direct from Calais to Calcuttathirteen days in the train. Thirteen days in the train are not good for the nerves; but he covered the world and returned to Calais from America in twelve days over the two months, and started afresh with four and twenty hours of precious time to his credit. Three years passed, and John Hay religiously went round this earth seeking for more time wherein to enjoy the remainder of his sovereigns. He became known on many lines as the man who wanted to go on; when people asked him what he was and what he did, he answered
Im the person who intends to live, and I am trying to do it now.
His days were divided between watching the white wake spinning behind the stern of the swiftest steamers, or the brown earth flashing past the windows of the faster trains; and he noted in a pocket-book every minute that he had railed or screwed out of remorseless eternity.
This is better than praying for long life, quoth John Hay as he turned his face eastward for his twentieth trip. The years had done more for him than he dared to hope. By the extension of the Brahmaputra Valley line to meet the newly-developed China Midland, the Calais railway ticket held good via Karachi and Calcutta to Hongkong. The round trip could be managed in a fraction over forty-seven days, and, filled with fatal exultation, John Hay told the secret of his longevity to his only friend, the house-keeper of his rooms in London. He spoke and passed; but the woman was one of resource, and immediately took counsel with the lawyers who had first informed John Hay of his golden legacy. Very many sovereigns still remained , and another. Hay longed to spend them on things more sensible than railway tickets and steamer accommodation.
The chase was long, for when a man is journeying literally for the dear life, he does not tarry upon the road. Round the world Hay swept anew, and overtook the wearied Doctor, who had been sent out to look for him, in Madras. It was there that he found the reward of his toil and the assurance of a blessed immortality. In half an hour the Doctor, watching always the parched lips, the shaking hands, and the eye that turned eternally to the east, won John Hay to rest in a little house close to the Madras surf. All that Hay need do was to hang by ropes from the roof of the room and let the round earth swing free beneath him. This was better than steamer or train, for he gained a day in a day, and was thus the equal of the undying sun. The other Hay would pay his expenses throughout eternity.
It is true that we cannot yet take tickets from Calais to Hongkong, though that will come about in fifteen years; but men say that if you wander along the southern coast of India you shall find in a neatly whitewashed little bungalow, sitting in a chair swung from the roof, over a sheet of thin steel which he knows so well destroys the attraction of the earth, an old and worn man who for ever faces the rising sun, a stop-watch in his hand, racing against eternity. He cannot drink, he does not smoke, and his living expenses amount to perhaps twenty-five rupees a month, but he is John Hay, the Immortal. Without, he hears the thunder of the wheeling world with which he is careful to explain he has no connection whatever; but if you say that it is only the noise of the surf, he will cry bitterly, for the shadow on his brain is passing away as the brain ceases to work, and he doubts sometimes whether the Doctor spoke the truth.
Why does not the sun always remain over my head? asks John Hay.
Its an ugly business, Bhere Singh, said the Policeman. Where are they?
It is a very ugly business, said Bhere Singh; and as for them, they are, doubtless, now frying in a hotter fire than was ever made of spruce-branches.
Let us hope not, said the Policeman, for, allowing for the difference between race and race, its the story of Francesca da Rimini, Bhere Singh.
Bhere Singh knew nothing about Francesca da Rimini, so he held his peace until they came to the charcoal-burners clearing where the dying flames said whit, whit, whit as they fluttered and whispered over the white ashes. It must have been a great fire when at full height. Men had seen it at Donga Pa across the valley winking and blazing through the night, and said that the charcoal-burners of Kodru were getting drunk. But it was only Suket Singh, Sepoy of the 102nd Punjab Native Infantry, and Athira, a woman, burningburningburning.
This was how things befell; and the Policemans Diary will bear me out.
Athira was the wife of Madu, who was a charcoal-burner, one-eyed and of a malignant disposition. A week after their marriage, he beat Athira with a heavy stick. A month later, Suket Singh, Sepoy, came that way to the cool hills on leave from his regiment, and electrified the villagers of Kodru with tales of service and glory under the Government, and the honour in which he, Suket Singh, was held by the Colonel Sahib Bahadur. And Desdemona listened to Othello as Desdemonas have done all the world over, and, as she listened, she loved.
Ive a wife of my own, said Suket Singh, though that is no matter when you come to think of it. I am also due to return to my regiment after a time, and I cannot be a deserterI who intend to be Havildar. There is no Himalayan version of I could not love thee, dear, as much, Loved I not Honour more; but Suket Singh came near to making one.
Never mind, said Athira, stay with me, and, if Madu tries to beat me, you beat him.
Very good, said Suket Singh; and he beat Madu severely, to the delight of all the charcoal-burners of Kodru.
That is enough, said Suket Singh, as he rolled Madu down the hillside. Now we shall have peace. But Madu crawled up the grass slope again, and hovered round his hut with angry eyes.
Hell kill me dead, said Athira to Suket Singh. You must take me away.
Therell be a trouble in the Lines. My wife will pull out my beard; but never mind, said Suket Singh, I will take you.
There was loud trouble in the Lines, and Suket Singhs beard was pulled, and Suket Singhs wife went to live with her mother and took away the children. Thats all right, said Athira; and Suket Singh said, Yes, thats all right.
So there was only Madu left in the hut that looks across the valley to Donga Pa; and, since the beginning of time, no one has had any sympathy for husbands so unfortunate as Madu.
He went to Juseen Dazé, the wizard-man who keeps the Talking Monkeyss Head.
Get me back my wife, said Madu.
I cant, said Juseen Dazé, until you have made the Sutlej in the valley run up the Donga Pa.
No riddles, said Madu, and he shook his hatchet above Juseen Dazés white head.
Give all your money to the headmen of the village, said Juseen Dazé; and they will hold a communal Council, and the Council will send a message that your wife must come back.
So Madu gave up all his worldly wealth, amounting to twenty-seven rupees, eight annas, three pice, and a silver chain, to the Council of Kodru. And it fell as Juseen Dazé foretold.
They sent Athiras brother down into Suket Singhs regiment to call Athira home. Suket Singh kicked him once round the Lines, and then handled him over to the Havildar, who beat him with a belt.
Come back, yelled Athiras brother.
Where to? said Athira.
To Madu, said he.
Never, said she.
Then Juseen Dazé will send a curse, and you will wither away like a barked tree in the springtime, said Athiras brother. Athira slept over these things.
Next morning she had rheumatism. I am beginning to wither away like a barked tree in the springtime, she said. That is the curse of Juseen Dazé.
And she really began to wither away because her heart was dried up with fear, and those who believe in curses die from curses. Suket Singh, too, was afraid because he loved Athira better than his very life. Two months passed, and Athiras brother stood outside the regimental Lines again and yelped, Aha! You are withering away. Come back.
I will come back, said Athira.
Say rather that we we will come back, said Suket Singh.
Ai; but when? said Athiras brother.
Upon a day very early in the morning, said Suket Singh; and he tramped off to apply to the Colonel Sahib Bahadur for one weeks leave.
I am withering away like a barked tree in the spring, moaned Athira.
You will be better soon, said Suket Singh; and he told her what was in his heart, and the two laughed together softly, for they loved each other. But Athira grew better from that hour.
They went away together, travelling third-class by train as the regulations provided, and then in a cart to the low hills, and on foot to the high ones. Athira sniffed the scent of the pines of her own hills, the wet Himalayan hills. It is good to be alive, said Athira.
Hah! said Suket Singh. Where is the Kodru road, and where is the Forest Rangers house?
It cost forty rupees twelve years ago, said the Forest Ranger handing the gun.
Here are twenty, said Suket Singh, and you must give me the best bullets.
It is very good to be alive, said Athira wistfully, sniffing the scent of the pine-mould; and they waited till the night had fallen upon Kodru and the Donga Pa. Madu had stacked the dry wood for the next days charcoal-burning on the spur above his house. It is courteous in Madu to save us this trouble, said Suket Singh, as he stumbled on the pile, which was twelve feet square and four high. We must wait till the moon rises.
When the moon rose, Athira knelt upon the pile. If it were only a Government Snider, said Suket Singh ruefully, squinting down the wire-bound barrel of the Forest Rangers gun.
Be quick, said Athira; and Suket Singh was quick; but Athira was quick no longer. Then he lit the pile at the four corners and climbed on to it, re-loading the gun.
The little flames began to peer up between the big logs atop of the brushwood. The Government should teach us to pull the triggers with our toes, said Suket Singh grimly to the moon. That was the last public observation of Sepoy Suket Singh.
Upon a day, early in the morning, Madu came to the pyre and shrieked very grievously, and ran away to catch the Policeman who was on tour in the district.
The base-born has ruined four rupees worth of charcoal wood, Madu gasped. He has also killed my wife, and he has left a letter which I cannot read, tied to a pine bough.
In the stiff, formal hand taught in the regimental school, Sepoy Suket Singh had written
Let us be burned together, if anything remain over, for we have made the necessary prayers. We have also cursed Madu, and Malak the brother of Athiraboth evil men. Send my service to the Colonel Sahib Bahadur.
The policeman looked long and curiously at the marriage bed of red and white ashes on which lay, dull black, the barrel of the Rangers gun. He drove his spurred heel absently into a half-charred log, and the chattering sparks flew upwards. Most extraordinary people, said the Policeman.
Whe-w, whew, ouiou, said the little flames.
The Policeman entered the dry bones of the case, for the Punjab Government does not approve of romancing, in his Diary.
But who will pay me those four rupees? said Madu.
From my father, said the child. He has the fever, and cannot come. Wilt thou pray for him, father?
Surely, littlest; but the smoke is on the ground, and the night-chill is in the air, and it is not good to go abroad naked in the autumn.
I have no clothes, said the child, and all today I have been carrying cow-dung cakes to the bazar. It was very hot, and I am very tired. It shivered a little, for the twilight was cool.
Gobind lifted an arm under his vast tattered quilt of many colours, and made an inviting little nest by his side. The child crept in, and Gobind filled his brass-studded leather waterpipe with the new tobacco. When I came to the Chubara the shaven head with the tuft atop, and the beady black eyes looked out of the folds of the quilt as a squirrel looks out from his nest, and Gobind was smiling while the child played with his beard.
I would have said something friendly, but remembered in time that if the child fell ill afterwards I should be credited with the Evil Eye, and that is a horrible possession.
Sit thou still, Thumbling, I said, as it made to get up and run away. Where is thy slate, and why has the teacher let such an evil character loose on the streets when there are no police to protect us weaklings? In which ward dost thou try to break thy neck with flying kites from the house-tops?
Nay, Sahib, nay, said the child, burrowing its face into Gobinds beard, and twisting uneasily. There was a holiday to-day among the schools, and I do not always fly kites. I play ker-li-kit like the rest.
Cricket is the national game among the schoolboys of the Punjab, from the naked hedge-school children, who use an old kerosine-tin for wicket, to the B.A.s of the University, who compete for the Championship belt.
Thou play kerlikit! Thou art half the height of the bat! I said.
The child nodded resolutely. Yea, I do play. Perlay-ball. Ow-at! Ran, ran, ran! I know it all.
But thou must not forget with all this to pray to the Gods according to custom, said Gobind, who did not altogether approve of cricket and Western innovations.
I do not forget, said the child in a hushed voice.
Also to give reverence to thy teacher, andGobinds voice softenedto abstain from pulling holy men by the beard, little badling. Eh, eh, eh?
The childs face was altogether hidden in the great white beard, and it began to whimper till Gobind soothed it as children are soothed all the world over, with the promise of a story.
I did not think to frighten thee, senseless little one. Look up! Am I angry? Aré, are, are! Shall I weep too, and of our tears make a great pond and drown us both, and then thy father will never get well, lacking thee to pull his beard? Peace, peace, and I will tell thee of the Gods. Thou hast heard many tales?
Very many, father.
Now, this is a new one which thou hast not heard. Long and long ago when the Gods walked with men as they do to-day, but that we have not faith to see, Shiv, the greatest of Gods, and Parbati his wife, were walking in the garden of a temple.
Which temple? That in the Nandgaon ward? said the child.
Nay, very far away. Maybe at Trimbak or Hurdwar, whither thou must make pilgrimage when thou art a man. Now, there was sitting in the garden under the jujube trees, a mendicant that had worshipped Shiv for forty years, and he lived on the offerings of the pious, and meditated holiness night and day.
Oh father, was it thou? said the child, looking up with large eyes.
Nay, I have said it was long ago, and, moreover, this mendicant was married.
Did they put him on a horse with flowers on his head, and forbid him to go to sleep all night long? Thus they did to me when they made my wedding, said the child, who had been married a few months before.
And what didst thou do? said I.
I wept, and they called me evil names, and then I smote her, and we wept together.
Thus did not the mendicant, said Gobind; for he was a holy man, and very poor. Parbati perceived him sitting naked by the temple steps where all went up and down, and she said to Shiv, What shall men think of the Gods when the Gods thus scorn their worshippers? For forty years yonder man has prayed to us, and yet there be only a few grains of rice and some broken cowries before him after all. Mens hearts will be hardened by this thing. And Shiv said, It shall be looked to, and so he called to the temple which was the temple of his son, Ganesh of the elephant head, saying, Son, there is a mendicant without who is very poor. What wilt thou do for him? Then that great elephant-headed One awoke in the dark and answered, In three days, if it be thy will, he shall have one lakh of rupees. Then Shiv and Parbati went away.
But there was a money-lender in the garden hidden among the marigoldsthe child looked at the ball of crumpled blossoms in its handsay, among the yellow marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking. He was a covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant and said, Oh brother, how much do the pious give thee daily? The mendicant said, I cannot tell. Sometimes a little rice, sometimes a little pulse, and a few cowries and, it has been, pickled mangoes, and dried fish.
That is good, said the child, smacking its lips.
Then said the money-lender, Because I have long watched thee, and learned to love thee and thy patience, I will give thee now five rupees for all thy earnings of the three days to come. There is only a bond to sign on the matter. But the mendicant said, Thou art mad. In two months I do not receive the worth of five rupees, and he told the thing to his wife that evening. She, being a woman, said, When did money-lender ever make a bad bargain? The wolf runs through the corn for the sake of the fat deer. Our fate is in the hands of the Gods. Pledge it not even for three days.
So the mendicant returned to the money-lender, and would not sell. Then that wicked man sat all day before him offering more and more for those three days earnings. First, ten, fifty, and a hundred rupees; and then, for he did not know when the Gods would pour down their gifts, rupees by the thousand, till he had offered half a lakh of rupees. Upon this sum the mendicants wife shifted her counsel, and the mendicant signed the bond, and the money was paid in silver; great white bullocks bringing it by the cartload. But saving only all that money, the mendicant received nothing from the Gods at all, and the heart of the money-lender was uneasy on account of expectation. Therefore at noon of the third day the money-lender went into the temple to spy upon the councils of the Gods, and to learn in what manner that gift might arrive. Even as he was making his prayers, a crack between the stones of the floor gaped, and, closing, caught him by the heel. Then he heard the Gods walking in the temple in the darkness of the columns, and Shiv called to his son Ganesh, saying Son, what hast thou done in regard to the lakh of rupees for the mendicant? And Ganesh woke, for the money-lender heard the dry rustle of his trunk uncoiling, and he answered, Father, one-half of the money has been paid, and the debtor for the other half I hold here fast by the heel.
The child bubbled with laughter. And the money-lender paid the mendicant? it said.
Surely, for he whom the Gods hold by the heel must pay to the uttermost. The money was paid at evening, all silver, in great carts, and thus Ganesh did his work.
Nathu! Ohé Nathu!
A woman was calling in the dusk by the door of the courtyard.
The child began to wriggle. That is my mother, it said.
Go then, littlest, answered Gobind; but stay a moment.
He ripped a generous yard from his patchwork-quilt, put it over the childs shoulders, and the child ran away.
And these men His Highness rules by the only weapon that they understand—the fear of death, which among some Orientals is the beginning of wisdom. Some say that the Amirs authority reaches no farther than a rifle bullet can range; but as none are quite certain when their king may be in their midst, and as he alone holds every one of the threads of Government, his respect is increased among men. Gholam Hyder, the Commander-in-chief of the Afghan army, is feared reasonably, for he can impale; all Kabul city fears the Governor of Kabul, who has power of life and death through all the wards; but the Amir of Afghanistan, though outlying tribes pretend otherwise when his back is turned, is dreaded beyond chief and governor together. His word is red law; by the gust of his passion falls the leaf of mans life, and his favour is terrible. He has suffered many things, and been a hunted fugitive before he came to the throne, and he understands all the classes of his people. By the custom of the East any man or woman having a complaint to make, or an enemy against whom to be avenged, has the right of speaking face to face with the king at the daily public audience. This is personal government, as it was in the days of Harun al Raschid of blessed memory, whose times exist still and will exist long after the English have passed away.
The privilege of open speech is of course exercised at certain personal risk. The king may be pleased, and raise the speaker to honour for that very bluntness of speech which three minutes later brings a too imitative petitioner to the edge of the ever ready blade. And the people love to have it so, for it is their right.
It happened upon a day in Kabul that the Amir chose to do his days work in the Baber Gardens, which lie a short distance from the city of Kabul. A light table stood before him, and round the table in the open air were grouped generals and finance ministers according to their degree. The Court and the long tail of feudal chiefs—men of blood, fed and cowed by blood—stood in an irregular semicircle round the table, and the wind from the Kabul orchards blew among them. All day long sweating couriers dashed in with letters from the outlying districts with rumours of rebellion, intrigue, famine, failure of payments, or announcements of treasure on the road; and all day long the Amir would read the dockets, and pass such of these as were less private to the officials whom they directly concerned, or call up a waiting chief for a word of explanation. It is well to speak clearly to the ruler of Afghanistan. Then the grim head, under the black astrachan cap with the diamond star in front, would nod gravely, and that chief would return to his fellows. Once that afternoon a woman clamoured for divorce against her husband, who was bald, and the Amir, hearing both sides of the case, bade her pour curds over the bare scalp, and lick them, off, that the hair might grow again, and she be contented. Here the Court laughed, and the woman withdrew, cursing her king under her breath.
But when twilight was falling, and the order of the Court was a little relaxed, there came before the king, in custody, a trembling haggard wretch, sore with much buffeting, but of stout enough build, who had stolen three rupees—of such small matters does His Highness take cognisance.
Why did you steal? said he; and when the king asks questions they do themselves service who answer directly.
I was poor, and no one gave. Hungry, and there was no food.
Why did you not work?
I could find no work, Protector of the Poor, and I was starving.
You lie. You stole for drink, for lust, for idleness, for anything but hunger, since any man who will may find work and daily bread.
The prisoner dropped his eyes. He had attended the Court before, and he knew the ring of the death-tone.
Any man may get work. Who knows this so well as I do? for I too have been hungerednot like you, bastard scum, but as any honest man may be, by the turn of Fate and the will of God.
Growing warm, the Amir turned to his nobles all arow and thrust the hilt of his sabre aside with his elbow.
You have heard this Son of Lies? Hear me tell a true tale. I also was once starved, and tightened my belt on the sharp belly-pinch. Nor was I alone, for with me was another, who did not fail me in my evil days, when I was hunted, before ever I came to this throne. And wandering like a houseless dog by Kandahar, my money melted, melted, melted till He flung out a bare palm before the audience. And day upon day, faint and sick, I went back to that one who waited, and God knows how we lived, till on a day I took our best lihaf—silk it was, fine work of Iran, such as no needle now works, warm, and a coverlet for two, and all that we had. I brought it to a money-lender in a by-lane, and I asked for three rupees upon it. He said to me, who am now the King, You are a thief. This is worth three hundred.I am no thief, I answered, but a prince of good blood, and I am hungry.Prince of wandering beggars, said that money-lender, I have no money with me, but go to my house with my clerk and he will give you two rupees eight annas, for that is all I will lend. So I went with the clerk to the house, and we talked on the way, and he gave me the money. We lived on it till it was spent, and we fared hard. And then that clerk said, being a young man of a good heart, Surely the money-lender will lend yet more on that lihaf, and he offered me two rupees. These I refused, saying, Nay; but get me some work. And he got me work, and I, even I, Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, wrought day by day as a coolie, bearing burdens, and labouring of my hands, receiving four annas wage a day for my sweat and backache. But he, this bastard son of naught, must steal! For a year and four months I worked, and none dare say that I lie, for I have a witness, even that clerk who is now my friend.
Then there rose in his place among the Sirdars and the nobles one clad in silk, who folded his hands and said, This is the truth of God, for I, who by the favour of God and the Amir, am such as you know, was once clerk to that money-lender.
There was a pause, and the Amir cried hoarsely to the prisoner, throwing scorn upon him, till he ended with the dread Dar arid, which clinches justice.
So they led the thief away, and the whole of him was seen no more together; and the Court rustled out of its silence, whispering, Before God and the Prophet, but this is a man!
Ephraim wore list slippers and coats of duster-cloth, so preposterously patterned that the most brazen of British Subalterns would have shied from them in fear. Very slow and deliberate was his speech, and carefully guarded to give offence to no one. After many weeks, Ephraim was induced to speak to me of his friends.
There be eight of us in Shushan, and we are waiting till there are ten. Then we shall apply for a synagogue, and get leave from Calcutta. To-day we have no synagogue; and I, only I, am Priest and Butcher to our people. I am of the tribe of JudahI think, but I am not sure. My father was of the tribe of Judah, and we wish much to get our synagogue. I shall be a priest of that synagogue.
Shushan is a big city in the North of India, counting its dwellers by the ten thousand; and these eight of the Chosen People were shut up in its midst, waiting till time or chance sent them their full congregation.
Miriam the wife of Ephraim, two little children, an orphan boy of their people, Ephraims uncle Jackrael Israel, a white-haired old man, his wife Hester, a Jew from Cutch, one Hyem Benjamin, and Ephraim, Priest and Butcher, made up the list of the Jews in Shushan. They lived in one house, on the outskirts of the great city, amid heaps of saltpetre, rotten bricks, herds of kine, and a fixed pillar of dust caused by the incessant passing of the beasts to the river to drink. In the evening the children of the City came to the waste place to fly their kites, and Ephraims sons held aloof, watching the sport from the roof, but never descending to take part in them. At the back of the house stood a small brick enclosure, in which Ephraim prepared the daily meat for his people after the custom of the Jews. Once the rude door of the square was suddenly smashed open by a struggle from inside, and showed the meek bill-collector at his work, nostrils dilated, lips drawn back over his teeth, and his hands upon a half-maddened sheep. He was attired in strange raiment, having no relation whatever to duster coats or list slippers, and a knife was in his mouth. As he struggled with the animal between the walls, the breath came from him in thick sobs, and the nature of the man seemed changed. When the ordained slaughter was ended, he saw that the door was open and shut it hastily, his hand leaving a red mark on the timber, while his children from the neighbouring house-top looked down awe-stricken and open-eyed. A glimpse of Ephraim busied in one of his religious capacities was nothing to be desired twice.
Summer came upon Shushan, turning the trodden waste-ground to iron, and bringing sickness to the city.
It will not touch us, said Ephraim confidently. Before the winter we shall have our synagogue. My brother and his wife and children are coming up from Calcutta, and then I shall be the priest of the synagogue.
Jackrael Israel, the old man, would crawl out in the stifling evenings to sit on the rubbish-heap and watch the corpses being borne down to the river.
It will not come near us, said Jackrael Israel feebly, for we are the People of God, and my nephew will be priest of our synagogue. Let them die. He crept back to his house again and barred the door to shut himself off from the world of the Gentile.
But Miriam, the wife of Ephraim, looked out of the window at the dead as the biers passed and said that she was afraid. Ephraim comforted her with hopes of the synagogue to be, and collected bills as was his custom.
In one night the two children died and were buried early in the morning by Ephraim. The deaths never appeared in the City returns. The sorrow is my sorrow, said Ephraim; and this to him seemed a sufficient reason for setting at naught the sanitary regulations of a large, flourishing, and remarkably well-governed Empire.
The orphan boy, dependent on the charity of Ephraim and his wife, could have felt no gratitude, and must have been a ruffian. He begged for whatever money his protectors would give him, and with that fled down-country for his life. A week after the death of her children Miriam left her bed at night and wandered over the country to find them? She heard them crying behind every bush, or drowning in every pool of water in the fields, and she begged the cartmen on the Grand Trunk Road not to steal her little ones from her. In the morning the sun rose and beat upon her bare head, and she turned into the cool wet crops to lie down and never came back; though Hyem Benjamin and Ephraim sought her for two nights.
The look of patient wonder on Ephraims face deepened, but he presently found an explanation. There are so few of us here, and these people are so many, said he, that, it may be, our God has forgotten us.
In the house on the outskirts of the city old Jackrael Israel and Hester grumbled that there was no one to wait on them, and that Miriam had been untrue to her race. Ephraim went out and collected bills, and in the evenings smoked with Hyem Benjamin till, one dawning, Hyem Benjamin died, having first paid all his debts to Ephraim. Jackrael Israel and Hester sat alone in the empty house all day, and, when Ephraim returned, wept the easy tears of age till they cried themselves asleep.
A week later Ephraim, staggering under a huge bundle of clothes and cooking-pots, led the old man and woman to the railway station, where the bustle and confusion made them whimper.
We are going back to Calcutta, said Ephraim, to whose sleeve Hester was clinging. There are more of us there, and here my house is empty.
He helped Hester into the carriage and, turning back, said to me, I should have been priest of the synagogue if there had been ten of us. Surely we must have been forgotten by our God.
The remnant of the broken colony passed out of the station on their journey south; while a Subaltern, turning over the books on the bookstall, was whistling to himself The Ten Little Nigger Boys.
But the tune sounded as solemn as the Dead March.
It was the dirge of the Jews in Shushan.
Three years ago, when the Elsass-Lothringen steamer Saarbruck was coaling at Aden and the weather was very hot indeed, Nurkeed, the big fat Zanzibar stoker who fed the second right furnace thirty feet down in the hold, got leave to go ashore. He departed a Seedee boy, as they call the stokers; he returned the full-blooded Sultan of ZanzibarHis Highness Sayyid Burgash, with a bottle in each hand. Then he sat on the fore-hatch grating, eating salt fish and onions, and singing the songs of a far country. The food belonged to Pambé, the Serang or head man of the lascar sailors. He had just cooked it for himself, turned to borrow some salt, and when he came back Nurkeeds dirty black fingers were spading into the rice.
A serang is a person of importance, far above a stoker, though the stoker draws better pay. He sets the chorus of Hya! Hulla! Hee-ah! Heh! when the captains gig is pulled up to the davits; he heaves the lead too; and sometimes, when all the ship is lazy, he puts on his whitest muslin and a big red sash, and plays with the passengers children on the quarter-deck. Then the passengers give him money, and he saves it all up for an orgie at Bombay or Calcutta, or Pulu Penang.
Ho! you fat black barrel, youre eating my food! said Pambé, in the Other Lingua Franca that begins where the Levant tongue stops, and runs from Port Said eastward till east is west, and the sealing-brigs of the Kurile Islands gossip with the strayed Hakodate junks.
Son of Eblis, monkey-face, dried sharks liver, pig-man, I am the Sultan Sayyid Burgash, and the commander of all this ship. Take away your garbage; and Nurkeed thrust the empty pewter rice-plate into Pambés hand.
Pambé beat it into a basin over Nurkeeds woolly head. Nurkeed drew his sheath-knife and stabbed Pambé in the leg. Pambé drew his sheath-knife; but Nurkeed dropped down into the darkness of the hold and spat through the grating at Pambé, who was staining the clean fore-deck with his blood.
Only the white moon saw these things; for the officers were looking after the coaling, and the passengers were tossing in their close cabins. All right, said Pambéand went forward to tie up his legwe will settle the account later on.
He was a Malay born in India: married once in Burma, where his wife had a cigar-shop on the Shwe-Dagon road; once in Singapore, to a Chinese girl; and once in Madras, to a Mahomedan woman who sold fowls. The English sailor cannot, owing to postal and telegraph facilities, marry as profusely as he used to do; but native sailors can, being uninfluenced by the barbarous inventions of the Western savage. Pambé was a good husband when he happened to remember the existence of a wife; but he was also a very good Malay; and it is not wise to offend a Malay, because he does not forget anything. Moreover, in Pambés case blood had been drawn and food spoiled.
Next morning Nurkeed rose with a blank mind. He was no longer Sultan of Zanzibar, but a very hot stoker. So he went on deck and opened his jacket to the morning breeze, till a sheath-knife came like a flying-fish and stuck into the wood-work of the cooks galley half an inch from his right armpit. He ran down below before his time, trying to remember what he could have said to the owner of the weapon. At noon, when all the ships lascars were feeding, Nurkeed advanced into their midst, and, being a placid man with a large regard for his own skin, he opened negotiations, saying, Men of the ship, last night I was drunk, and this morning I know that I behaved unseemly to some one or another of you. Who was that man, that I may meet him face to face and say that I was drunk?
Pambé measured the distance to Nurkeeds naked breast. If he sprang at him he might be tripped up, and a blind blow at the chest sometimes only means a gash on the breast-bone. Ribs are difficult to thrust between unless the subject be asleep. So he said nothing; nor did the other lascars. Their faces immediately dropped all expression, as is the custom of the Oriental when there is killing on the carpet or any chance of trouble. Nurkeed looked long at the white eye-balls. He was only an African, and could not read characters. A big sighalmost a groanbroke from him, and he went back to the furnaces. The lascars took up the conversation where he had interrupted it. They talked of the best methods of cooking rice.
Nurkeed suffered considerably from lack of fresh air during the run to Bombay. He only came on deck to breathe when all the world was about; and even then a heavy block once dropped from a derrick within a foot of his head, and an apparently firm-lashed grating on which he set his foot began to turn over with the intention of dropping him on the cased cargo fifteen feet below; and one insupportable night the sheath-knife dropped from the focsle, and this time it drew blood. So Nurkeed made complaint; and, when the Saarbruck reached Bombay, fled and buried himself among eight hundred thousand people, and did not sign articles till the ship had been a month gone from the port. Pambé waited too; but his Bombay wife grew clamorous, and he was forced to sign in the Spicheren to Hongkong, because he realised that all play and no work gives Jack a ragged shirt. In the foggy China seas he thought a great deal of Nurkeed, and, when Elsass-Loth-ringen steamers lay in port with the Spicheren, inquired after him and found he had gone to England via the Cape, on the Gravelotte. Pambé came to England on the Worth. The Spicheren met her by the Nore Light. Nurkeed was going out with the Spicheren to the Calicut coast.
Want to find a friend, my trap-mouthed coal-scuttle? said a gentleman in the mercantile service. Nothing easier. Wait at the Nyanza Docks till he comes. Every one comes to the Nyanza Docks. Wait, you poor heathen. The gentleman spoke truth. There are three great doors in the world where, if you stand long enough, you shall meet any one you wish. The head of the Suez Canal is one, but there Death comes also; Charing Cross Station is the secondfor inland work; and the Nyanza Docks is the third. At each of these places are men and women looking eternally for those who will surely come. So Pambé waited at the docks. Time was no object to him; and the wives could wait, as he did from day to day, week to week, and month to month, by the Blue Diamond funnels, the Red Dot smoke-stacks, the Yellow Streaks, and the nameless dingy gypsies of the sea that loaded and unloaded, jostled, whistled, and roared in the everlasting fog. When money failed, a kind gentleman told Pambé to become a Christian; and Pambé became one with great speed, getting his religious teachings between ship and ships arrival, and six or seven shillings a week for distributing tracts to mariners. What the faith was Pambé did not in the least care; but he knew if he said Native Ki-lis-ti-an, Sar to men with long black coats he might get a few coppers; and the tracts were vendible at a little public-house that sold shag by the dottel, which is even smaller weight than the half-screw, which is less than the half-ounce, and a most profitable retail trade.
But after eight months Pambé fell sick with pneumonia, contracted from long standing still in slush; and much against his will he was forced to lie down in his two-and-sixpenny room raging against Fate.
The kind gentleman sat by his bedside, and grieved to find that Pambé talked in strange tongues, instead of listening to good books, and almost seemed to become a benighted heathen againtill one day he was roused from semistupor by a voice in the street by the dock-head. My friendhe, whispered Pambé. Call nowcall Nurkeed. Quick! God has sent him!
He wanted one of his own race, said the kind gentleman; and, going out, he called Nurkeed! at the top of his voice. An excessively coloured man in a rasping white shirt and brand-new slops, a shining hat, and a breast-pin, turned round. Many voyages had taught Nurkeed how to spend his money and made him a citizen of the world.
Hi! Yes! said he, when the situation was explained. Command himblack niggerwhen I was in the Saarbruck. Ole Pambé, good ole Pambé. Dam lascar. Show him up, Sar; and he followed into the room. One glance told the stoker what the kind gentleman had overlooked. Pambé was desperately poor. Nurkeed drove his hands deep into his pockets, then advanced with clenched fists on the sick, shouting, Hya, Pambé. Hya! Hee-ah! Hulla! Heh! Takilo! Takilo! Make fast aft, Pambé. You know, Pambé. You know me. Dekho, jee! Look! Dam big fat lazy lascar!
Pambé beckoned with his left hand. His right was under his pillow. Nurkeed removed his gorgeous hat and stooped over Pambé till he could catch a faint whisper. How beautiful! said the kind gentleman. How these Orientals love like children!
Spit him out, said Nurkeed, leaning over Pambé yet more closely.
Touching the matter of that fish and onions said Pambéand sent the knife home under the edge of the rib-bone upwards and forwards.
There was a thick sick cough, and the body of the African slid slowly from the bed, his clutching hands letting fall a shower of silver pieces that ran across the room.
Now I can die! said Pambé.
But he did not die. He was nursed back to life with all the skill that money could buy, for the Law wanted him; and in the end he grew sufficiently healthy to be hanged in due and proper form.
Pambé did not care particularly; but it was a sad blow to the kind gentleman.
He trotted into the court-compound, and sat upon the well-kerb, wondering whether an unsuccessful dive into the black water below would end in a forced voyage across the other Black Water. A groom put down an emptied nose-bag on the bricks, and Little Tobrah, being hungry, set himself to scrape out what wet grain the horse had overlooked.
O Thiefand but newly set free from the terror of the Law! Come along! said the groom, and Little Tobrah was led by the ear to a large and fat Englishman, who heard the tale of the theft.
Hah! said the Englishman three times (only he said a stronger word). Put him into the net and take him home. So Little Tobrah was thrown into the net of the cart, and, nothing doubting that he should be stuck like a pig, was driven to the Englishmans house. Hah! said the Englishman as before. Wet grain, by Jove! Feed the little beggar, some of you, and well make a riding-boy of him! See? Wet grain, good Lord!
Give an account of yourself, said the Head of the Grooms to Little Tobrah after the meal had been eaten, and the servants lay at ease in their quarters behind the house. You are not of the groom caste, unless it be for the stomachs sake. How came you into the court, and why? Answer, little devils spawn!
There was not enough to eat, said Little Tobrah calmly. This is a good place.
Talk straight talk, said the Head Groom, or I will make you clean out the stable of that large red stallion who bites like a camel.
We be Telis, oil-pressers, said Little Tobrah, scratching his toes in the dust. We were Telismy father, my mother, my brother, the elder by four years, myself, and the sister.
She who was found dead in the well? said one who had heard something of the trail.
Even so, said Little Tobrah gravely. She who was found dead in the well. It befell upon a time, which is not in my memory, that the sickness came to the village where our oil-press stood, and first my sister was smitten as to her eyes, and went without sight, for it was matathe small-pox. Thereafter, my father and my mother died of that same sickness, so we were alonemy brother who had twelve years, I who had eight, and the sister who could not see. Yet were there the bullock and the oil-press remaining, and we made shift to press the oil as before. But Surjun Dass, the grain-seller, cheated us in his dealings; and it was always a stubborn bullock to drive. We put marigold flowers for the Gods upon the neck of the bullock, and upon the great grinding-beam that rose through the roof; but we gained nothing thereby, and Surjun Dass was a hard man.
Bapri-bap, muttered the grooms wives, to cheat a child so! But we know what the bunnia-folk are, sisters.
The press was an old press, and we were not strong menmy brother and I; nor could we fix the neck of the beam firmly in the shackle.
Nay, indeed, said the gorgeously-clad wife of the Head Groom, joining the circle. That is a strong mans work. When I was a maid in my fathers house
Peace, woman, said the Head Groom. Go on, boy.
It is nothing, said Little Tobrah. The big beam tore down the roof upon a day which is not in my memory, and with the roof fell much of the hinder wall, and both together upon our bullock, whose back was broken. Thus we had neither home, nor press, nor bullockmy brother, myself, and the sister who was blind. We went crying away from that place, hand-in-hand, across the fields; and our money was seven annas and six pie. There was a famine in the land. I do not know the name of the land. So, on a night when we were sleeping, my brother took the five annas that remained to us and ran away. I do not know whither he went. The curse of my father be upon him. But I and the sister begged food in the villages, and there was none to give. Only all men saidGo to the Englishmen and they will give. I did not know what the Englishmen were; but they said that they were white, living in tents. I went forward; but I cannot say whither I went, and there was no more food for myself or the sister. And upon a hot night, she weeping and calling for food, we came to a well, and I bade her sit upon the kerb, and thrust her in, for, in truth, she could not see; and it is better to die than to starve.
Ai! Ahi! wailed the grooms wives in chorus; he thrust her in, for it is better to die than to starve!
I would have thrown myself in also, but that she was not dead and called to me from the bottom of the well, and I was afraid and ran. And one came out of the crops saying that I had killed her and defiled the well, and they took me before an Englishman, white and terrible, living in a tent, and me he sent here. But there were no witnesses, and it is better to die than to starve. She, furthermore, could not see with her eyes, and was but a little child.
Was but a little child, echoed the Head Grooms wife. But who art thou, weak as a fowl and small as a day-old colt, what art thou?
I who was empty am now full, said Little Tobrah, stretching himself upon the dust. And I would sleep.
The grooms wife spread a cloth over him while Little Tobrah slept the sleep of the just.
There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planters clearing: the wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Gujs neck and gave him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the stumpsfor he owned a magnificent pair of tusks; or pulled at the end of a ropefor he had a magnificent pair of shoulderswhile Deesa kicked him behind the ears and said he was the king of elephants. At evening time Moti Guj would wash down his three hundred pounds weight of green food with a quart of arrack, and Deesa would take a share, and sing songs between Moti Gujs legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and Moti Gui lay on his side luxuriously in the shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir swab and a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the latter for the smack of the former that warned him to get up and turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at his feet and examine his eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty ears in case of sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection the two would come up with a song from the sea, Moti Guj, all black and shining, waving a torn tree branch twelve feet long in his trunk, and Deesa knotting up his own long wet hair.
It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the return of the desire to drink deep. He wished for an orgy. The little draughts that led nowhere were taking the manhood out of him.
He went to the planter, and My mothers dead, said he, weeping.
She died on the last plantation two months ago, and she died once before that when you were working for me last year, said the planter, who knew something of the ways of nativedom.
Then its my aunt, and she was just the same as a mother to me, said Deesa, weeping more than ever. She has left eighteen small children entirely without bread, and it is I who must fill their little stomachs, said Deesa, beating his head on the floor.
Who brought the news? said the planter.
The post, said Deesa.
There hasnt been a post here for the past week. Get back to your lines!
A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all my wives are dying, yelled Deesa, really in tears this time.
Call Chihun, who comes from Deesas village, said the planter. Chihun, has this man got a wife?
He? said Chihun. No. Not a woman of our village would look at him, Theyd sooner marry the elephant,
Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed.
You will get into a difficulty in a minute, said the planter. Go back to your work!
Now I will speak Heavens truth gulped Deesa, with an inspiration. I havent been drunk for two months. I desire to depart in order to get properly drunk afar off and distant from this heavenly plantation. Thus I shall cause no trouble.
A flickering smile crossed the planters face. Deesa, said he, youve spoken the truth, and Id give you leave on the spot if anything could be done with Moti Guj while youre away. You know that he will only obey your orders.
May the light of the heavens live forty thousand years. I shall be absent but ten little days. After that, upon my faith and honor and soul, I return. As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the gracious permission of the heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?
Permission was granted, and in answer of Deesas shrill yell, the mighty tusker swung out of the shade of a clump of trees where he had been squirting dust over himself till his master should return.
Light of my heart, protector of the drunken, mountain of might, give ear! said Deesa, standing in front of him.
Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. I am going away. said Deesa.
Moti Gujs eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well as his master. One could snatch all manner of nice things from the roadside then.
But you, you fussy old pig, must stay behind and work.
The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look delighted. He hated stump-hauling on the plantation. It hurt his teeth.
I shall be gone for ten days, oh, delectable one! Hold up your near fore-foot and Ill impress the fact upon it, warty toad of a dried mud-puddle. Deesa took a tent-peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on the nails. Moti Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot.
Ten days, said Deesa, you will work and haul and root the trees as Chihun here shall order you. Take up Chihun and set him on your neck! Moti Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot there, and was swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy ankusthe iron elephant goad.
Chihun thumped Moti Gujs bald head as a paver thumps a curbstone.
Moti Guj trumpeted.
Be still, hog of the backwoods! Chibuns your mahout for ten days. And now bid me good-bye, beast after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my king! Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve your honored health; be virtuous. Adieu!
Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him into the air twice. That was his way of bidding him good-bye.
Hell work now, said Deesa to the planter. Have I leave to go?
The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. Moti Guj went back to haul stumps.
Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and forlorn for all that. Chihun gave him a ball of spices, and tickled him under the chin, and Chihuns little baby cooed to him after work was over. and Chihuns wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a bachelor by instinct, as Deesa was. He did not understand the domestic emotions. He wanted the light of his universe back againthe drink and the drunken slumber, the savage beatings and the savage caresses.
None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had wandered along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his own caste, and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted with it past all knowledge of the lapse of time.
The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there returned no Deesa, Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes for the daily stint. He swung clear, looked round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away, as one having business elsewhere.
Hi! ho! Come back you! shouted Chihun. Come back and put me on your neck, misborn mountain! Return, splendor of the hillsides! Adornment of all India, heave to, or Ill bang every toe off your forefoot!
Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun ran after him with a rope and caught him up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun knew what that meant, though he tried to carry it off with high words.
None of your nonsense with me, said he. To your pickets, devil-son!
Hrrump! said Moti Guj, and that was allthat and the forebent ears.
Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making fun of the other elephants who had just set to work.
Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who came out with a dog-whip and cracked it furiously. Moti Guj paid the white man the compliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile across the clearing and Hrrumphing him into his veranda. Then he stood outside the house, chuckling to himself and shaking all over with the fun of it, as an elephant will.
Well thrash him, said the planter. He shall have the finest thrashing ever elephant received. Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelve foot of chain apiece, and tell them to lay on twenty.
Kala Nagwhich means Black Snakeand Nazim were two of the biggest elephants in the lines, and one of their duties was to administer the graver punishment, since no man can beat an elephant properly.
They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in their trunks as they sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to hustle him between them. Moti Guj had never, in all his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped, and he did not intend to begin a new experience. So he waited, waving his head from right to left, and measuring the precise spot in Kala Nags fat side where a blunt tusk could sink deepest. Kala Nag had no tusks; the chain was the badge of his authority; but for all that, he swung wide of Moti Guj at the last minute, and tried to appear as if he had brought the chain out for amusement. Nazim turned round and went home early. He did not feel fighting fit that morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing alone with his ears cocked.
That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti Guj rolled back to his amateur inspection of the clearing. An elephant who will not work and is not tied up is about as manageable as an eightyone-ton gun loose in a heavy seaway. He slapped old friends on the back and asked them if the stumps were coming away easily; he talked nonsense concerning labor and the inalienable rights of elephants to a long nooning; and, wandering to and fro, he thoroughly demoralized the garden till sundown, when he returned to his picket for food.
If you wont work, you shant eat, said Chihun, angrily. Youre a wild elephant, and no educated animal at all. Go back to your jungle.
Chihuns little brown baby was rolling on the floor of the hut, and stretching out its fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti Guj knew well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He swung out his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the brown baby threw itself, shouting, upon it. Moti Guj made fast and pulled up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet above his fathers head.
Great Lord! said Chihun. Flour cakes of the best, twelve in number, two feet across and soaked in rum, shall be yours on the instant, and two hundred pounds weight of fresh-cut young sugar-cane therewith. Deign only to put down safely that insignificant brat who is my heart and my life to me!
Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between his forefeet, that could have knocked into toothpicks all Chihuns hut, and waited for his food. He ate it, and the brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj dozed and thought of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with the elephant is that his huge body needs less sleep than anything else that lives. Four or five hours in the night suffice-two just before midnight, lying down on one side; two just after one oclock, lying down on the other. The rest of the silent hours are filled with eating and fidgeting, and long grumbling soliloquies.
At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for a thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in the dark forest with none to look after him. So all that night he chased through the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking his ears. He went down to the river and blared across the shallows where Deesa used to wash him, hut there was no answer. He could not find Deesa, but he disturbed all the other elephants in the lines, and nearly frightened to death some gypsies in the woods.
At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been very drunk in deed, and he expected to get into trouble for outstaying his leave. He drew a long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the plantation were still uninjured, for he knew something of Moti Gujs temper, and reported himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj had gone to his pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had made him hungry.
Call up your beast, said the planter; and Deesa shouted in the mysterious elephant language that some mahouts believe came from China at the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were masters. Moti Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop They move from places of varying rates of speed. If an elephant wished to catch an express train he could not gallop, but he could catch the train. So Moti Guj was at the planters door almost before Chihun noticed that he had left his pickets. He fell into Deesas arms trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and slobbered over each other, and handled each other from head to heel to see that no harm had befallen
Now we will get to work, saod Dessa. Lift me up, my son and my joy!
Moti Guj swang him up, and the two went to the coffee-clearing to look for difficult stumps.
The planter was too astonished to be very angry.
Five miles west of Chachuran is a patch of the plumed jungle-grass, that turns over in silver when the wind blows, from ten to twenty feet high and from three to four miles square. In the heart of the patch hides the gosain of Bubbling Well Road. The villagers stone him when he peers into the daylight, although he is a priest, and he runs back again as a strayed wolf turns into tall crops. He is a one-eyed man and carries, burnt between his brows, the impress of two copper coins. Some say that he was tortured by a native prince in the old days; for he is so old that he must have been capable of mischief in the days of Runjit Singh. His most pressing need at present is a halter, and the care of the British Government.
These things happened when the jungle-grass was tall; and the villagers of Chachuran told me that a sounder of pig had gone into the Arti-goth patch. To enter jungle-grass is always an unwise proceeding, but I went, partly because I knew nothing of pig-hunting, and partly because the villagers said that the big boar of the sounder owned foot long tushes. Therefore I wished to shoot him, in order to produce the tushes in after years, and say that I had ridden him down in fair chase. I took a gun and went into the hot, close patch, believing that it would be an easy thing to unearth one pig in ten square miles of jungle. Mr. Wardle, the terrier, went with me because he believed that I was incapable of existing for an hour without his advice and countenance. He managed to slip in and out between the grass clumps, but I had to force my way, and in twenty minutes was as completely lost as though I had been in the heart of Central Africa. I did not notice this at first till I had grown wearied of stumbling and pushing through the grass, and Mr. Wardle was beginning to sit down very often and hang out his tongue very far. There was nothing but grass everywhere, and it was impossible to see two yards in any direction. The grass stems held the heat exactly as boiler-tubes do.
In half an hour, when I was devoutly wishing that I had left the big boar alone, I came to a narrow path which seemed to be a compromise between a native foot-path and a pig-run. It was barely six inches wide, but I could sidle along it in comfort. The grass was extremely thick here, and where the path was ill defined it was necessary to crush into the tussocks either with both hands before the face, or to back into it, leaving both hands free to manage the rifle. None the less it was a path, and valuable because it might lead to a place.
At the end of nearly fifty yards of fair way, just when I was preparing to back into an unusually stiff tussock, I missed Mr. Wardle, who for his girth is an unusually frivolous dog and never keeps to heel. I called him three times and said aloud, ‘Where has the little beast gone to?’ Then I stepped backwards several paces, for almost under my feet a deep voice repeated, ‘Where has the little beast gone?’ To appreciate an unseen voice thoroughly you should hear it when you are lost in stifling jungle grass. I called Mr. Wardle again and the underground echo assisted me. At that I ceased calling and listened very attentively, because I thought I heard a man laughing in a peculiarly offensive manner. The heat made me sweat, but the laughter made me shake. There is no earthly need for laughter in high grass. It is indecent, as well as impolite. The chuckling stopped, and I took courage and continued to call till I thought that I had located the echo somewhere behind and below the tussock into which I was preparing to back just before I lost Mr. Wardle. I drove my rifle up to the triggers between the grass-stems in a downward and forward direction. Then I waggled it to and fro, but it did not seem to touch ground on the far side of the tussock as it should have done. Every time that I grunted with the exertion of driving a heavy rifle through thick grass, the grunt was faithfully repeated from below, and when I stopped to wipe my face the sound of low laughter was distinct beyond doubting.
I went into the tussock, face first, an inch at a time, my mouth open and my eyes fine, full, and prominent. When I had overcome the resistance of the grass I found that I was looking straight across a black gap in the ground. That I was actually lying on my chest leaning over the mouth of a well so deep I could scarcely see the water in it.
There were things in the water,—black things,—and the water was as black as pitch with blue scum atop. The laughing sound came from the noise of a little spring, spouting half-way down one side of the well. Sometimes as the black things circled round, the trickle from the spring fell upon their tightly- stretched skins, and then the laughter changed into a sputter of mirth. One thing turned over on its back, as I watched, and drifted round and round the circle of the mossy brickwork with a hand and half an arm held clear of the water in a stiff and horrible flourish, as though it were a very wearied guide paid to exhibit the beauties of the place.
I did not spend more than half-an-hour in creeping round that well and finding the path on the other side. The remainder of the journey I accomplished by feeling every foot of ground in front of me, and crawling like a snail through every tussock. I carried Mr. Wardle in my arms and he licked my nose. He was not frightened in the least, nor was I, but we wished to reach open ground in order to enjoy the view. My knees were loose, and the apple in my throat refused to slide up and down. The path on the far side of the well was a very good one, though boxed in on all sides by grass, and it led me in time to a priest’s hut in the centre of a little clearing. When that priest saw my very white face coming through the grass he howled with terror and embraced my boots; but when I reached the bedstead set outside his door I sat down quickly and Mr. Wardle mounted guard over me. I was not in a condition to take care of myself.
When I awoke I told the priest to lead me into the open, out of the Arti-goth patch and to walk slowly in front of me. Mr. Wardle hates natives, and the priest was more afraid of Mr. Wardle than of me, though we were both angry. He walked very slowly down a narrow little path from his hut. That path crossed three paths, such as the one I had come by in the first instance, and every one of the three headed towards the Bubbling Well. Once when we stopped to draw breath, I heard the Well laughing to itself alone in the thick grass, and only my need for his services prevented my firing both barrels into the priest’s back.
When we came to the open the priest crashed back into cover, and I went to the village of Arti-goth for a drink. It was pleasant to be able to see the horizon all round, as well as the ground underfoot.
The villagers told me that the patch of grass was full of devils and ghosts, all in the service of the priest, and that men and women and children had entered it and had never returned. They said the priest used their livers for purposes of witchcraft. When I asked why they had not told me of this at the outset, they said that they were afraid they would lose their reward for bringing news of the pig.
Before I left I did my best to set the patch alight, but the grass was too green. Some fine summer day, however, if the wind is favourable, a file of old newspapers and a box of matches will make clear the mystery of Bubbling Well Road.
The mat-weavers hut under the lee of the Hindu temple was full of sleeping men who lay like sheeted corpses. Overhead blazed the unwinking eye of the Moon. Darkness gives at least a false impression of coolness. It was hard not to believe that the flood of light from above was warm. Not so hot as the Sun, but still sickly warm, and heating the heavy air beyond what was our due. Straight as a bar of polished steel ran the road to the City of Dreadful Night; and on either side of the road lay corpses disposed on beds in fantastic attitudesone hundred and seventy bodies of men. Some shrouded all in white with bound-up mouths; some naked and black as ebony in the strong light; and onethat lay face upwards with dropped jaw, far away from the otherssilvery white and ashen gray.
A leper asleep; and the remainder wearied coolies, servants, small shopkeepers, and drivers from the hack-stand hard by. The scenea main approach to Lahore city, and the night a warm one in August. This was all that there was to be seen; but by no means all that one could see. The witchery of the moonlight was everywhere; and the world was horribly changed. The long line of the naked dead, flanked by the rigid silver statue, was not pleasant to look upon. It was made up of men alone. Were the women-kind, then, forced to sleep in the shelter of the stifling mud-huts as best they might? The fretful wail of a child from a low mud-roof answered the question. Where the children are the mothers must be also to look after them. They need care on these sweltering nights. A black little bullet-head peeped over the coping, and a thina painfully thinbrown leg was slid over on to the gutter pipe. There was a sharp clink of glass bracelets; a womans arm showed for an instant above the parapet, twined itself round the lean little neck, and the child was dragged back, protesting, to the shelter of the bedstead. His thin, high-pitched shriek died out in the thick air almost as soon as it was raised; for even the children of the soil found it too hot to weep.
More corpses; more stretches of moonlit, white road; a string of sleeping camels at rest by the wayside; a vision of scudding jackals; ekkaponies asleepthe harness still on their backs, and the brass-studded country carts, winking in the moonlightand again more corpses. Wherever a grain cart atilt, a tree trunk, a sawn log, a couple of bamboos and a few handfuls of thatch cast a shadow, the ground is covered with them. They liesome face downwards, arms folded, in the dust; some with clasped hands flung up above their heads; some curled up dog-wise; some thrown like limp gunny-bags over the side of the grain carts; and some bowed with their brows on their knees in the full glare of the Moon. It would be a comfort if they were only given to snoring; but they are not, and the likeness to corpses is unbroken in all respects save one. The lean dogs snuff at them and turn away. Here and there a tiny child lies on his fathers bedstead, and a protecting arm is thrown round it in every instance. But, for the most part, the children sleep with their mothers on the housetops. Yellow-skinned white-toothed pariahs are not to be trusted within reach of brown bodies.
A stifling hot blast from the mouth of the Delhi Gate nearly ends my resolution of entering the City of Dreadful Night at this hour. It is a compound of all evil savours, animal and vegetable, that a walled city can brew in a day and a night. The temperature within the motionless groves of plantain and orange-trees outside the city walls seems chilly by comparison. Heaven help all sick persons and young children within the city tonight! The high house-walls are still radiating heat savagely, and from obscure side gullies fetid breezes eddy that ought to poison a buffalo. But the buffaloes do not heed. A drove of them are parading the vacant main street; stopping now and then to lay their ponderous muzzles against the closed shutters of a grain-dealers shop, and to blow thereon like grampuses.
Then silence followsthe silence that is full of the night noises of a great city. A stringed instrument of some kind is just, and only just audible. High over head some one throws open a window, and the rattle of the woodwork echoes down the empty street. On one of the roofs a hookah is in full blast; and the men are talking softly as the pipe gutters. A little farther on the noise of conversation is more distinct. A slit of light shows itself between the sliding shutters of a shop. Inside, a stubble-bearded, weary-eyed trader is balancing his account-books among the bales of cotton prints that surround him. Three sheeted figures bear him company, and throw in a remark from time to time. First he makes an entry, then a remark; then passes the back of his hand across his streaming forehead. The heat in the built-in street is fearful. Inside the shops it must be almost unendurable. But the work goes on steadily; entry, guttural growl, and uplifted hand-stroke succeeding each other with the precision of clock-work.
A policemanturbanless and fast asleeplies across the road on the way to the Mosque of Wazir Khan. A bar of moonlight falls across the forehead and eyes of the sleeper, but he never stirs. It is close upon midnight, and the heat seems to be increasing. The open square in front of the Mosque is crowded with corpses; and a man must pick his way carefully for fear of treading on them. The moonlight stripes the Mosques high front of coloured enamel work in broad diagonal bands; and each separate dreaming pigeon in the niches and corners of the masonry throws a squab little shadow. Sheeted ghosts rise up wearily from their pallets, and flit into the dark depths of the building. Is it possible to climb to the top of the great Minars, and thence to look down on the city? At all events the attempt is worth making, and the chances are that the door of the staircase will be unlocked. Unlocked it is; but a deeply sleeping janitor lies across the threshold, face turned to the Moon. A rat dashes out of his turban at the sound of approaching footsteps. The man grunts, opens his eyes for a minute, turns round, and goes to sleep again. All the heat of a decade of fierce Indian summers is stored in the pitch-black, polished walls of the corkscrew staircase. Half-way up there is something alive, warm, and feathery; and it snores. Driven from step to step as it catches the sound of my advance, it flutters to the top and reveals itself as a yellow-eyed, angry kite. Dozens of kites are asleep on this and the other Minars, and on the domes below. There is the shadow of a cool, or at least a less sultry breeze at this height; and, refreshed thereby, turn to look on the City of Dreadful Night.
Doré might have drawn it! Zola could describe itthis spectacle of sleeping thousands in the moonlight and in the shadow of the Moon. The roof-tops are crammed with men, women, and children; and the air is full of undistinguishable noises. They are restless in the City of Dreadful Night; and small wonder. The marvel is that they can even breathe. If you gaze intently at the multitude you can see that they are almost as uneasy as a daylight crowd; but the tumult is subdued. Everywhere, in the strong light, you can watch the sleepers turning to and fro; shifting their beds and again resettling them. In the pitlike courtyards of the houses there is the same movement.
The pitiless Moon shows it all. Shows, too, the plains outside the city, and here and there a hands-breadth of the Ravee without the walls. Shows lastly, a splash of glittering silver on a house-top almost directly below the mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to throw a jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the falling water strikes faintly on the ear. Two or three other men, in far-off corners of the City of Dreadful Night, follow his example, and the water flashes like heliographic signals. A small cloud passes over the face of the Moon, and the city and its inhabitantsclear drawn in black and white beforefade into masses of black and deeper black. Still the unrestful noise continues, the sigh of a great city overwhelmed with the heat, and of a people seeking in vain for rest. It is only the lower-class women who sleep on the house-tops. What must the torment be in the latticed zenanas, where a few lamps are still twinkling? There are footfalls in the court below. It is the Muezzinfaithful minister; but he ought to have been here an hour ago to tell the Faithful that prayer is better than sleepthe sleep that will not come to the city.
The Muezzin fumbles for a moment with the door of one of the Minars, disappears awhile, and a bull-like roara magnificent bass thundertells that he has reached the top of the Minar. They must hear the cry to the banks of the shrunken Ravee itself! Even across the courtyard it is almost overpowering. The cloud drifts by and shows him outlined in black against the sky, hands laid upon his ears, and broad chest heaving with the play of his lungsAllah ho Akbar; then a pause while another Muezzin somewhere in the direction of the Golden Temple takes up the callAllah ho Akbar. Again and again; four times in all; and from the bedsteads a dozen men have risen up already.I bear witness that there is no God but God. What a splendid cry it is, the proclamation of the creed that brings men out of their beds by scores at midnight! Once again he thunders through the same phrase, shaking with the vehemence of his own voice; and then, far and near, the night air rings with Mahomed is the Prophet of God. It is as though he were flinging his defiance to the far-off horizon, where the summer lightning plays and leaps like a bared sword. Every Muezzin in the city is in full cry, and some men on the roof-tops are beginning to kneel. A long pause precedes the last cry, La ilaha Illallah, and the silence closes up on it, as the ram on the head of a cotton-bale.
The Muezzin stumbles down the dark stairway grumbling in his beard. He passes the arch of the entrance and disappears. Then the stifling silence settles down over the City of Dreadful Night. The kites on the Minar sleep again, snoring more loudly, the hot breeze comes up in puffs and lazy eddies, and the Moon slides down towards the horizon. Seated with both elbows on the parapet of the tower, one can watch and wonder over that heat-tortured hive till the dawn. How do they live down there? What do they think of? When will they awake? More tinkling of sluiced water-pots; faint jarring of wooden bedsteads moved into or out of the shadows; uncouth music of stringed instruments softened by distance into a plaintive wail, and one low grumble of far-off thunder. In the courtyard of the mosque the janitor, who lay across the threshold of the Minar when I came up, starts wildly in his sleep, throws his hands above his head, mutters something, and falls back again. Lulled by the snoring of the kitesthey snore like over-gorged humansI drop off into an uneasy doze, conscious that three oclock has struck, and that there is a slighta very slightcoolness in the atmosphere. The city is absolutely quiet now, but for some vagrant dogs love-song. Nothing save dead heavy sleep.
Several weeks of darkness pass after this. For the Moon has gone out. The very dogs are still, and I watch for the first light of the dawn before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The morning call is about to begin, and my night watch is over. Allah ho Akbar! Allah ho Akbar! The east grows gray, and presently saffron; the dawn wind comes up as though the Muezzin had summoned it; and, as one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its bed and turns its face towards the dawning day. With return of life comes return of sound. First a low whisper, then a deep bass hum; for it must be remembered that the entire city is on the house-tops. My eyelids weighed down with the arrears of long deferred sleep, I escape from the Minar through the courtyard and out into the square beyond, where the sleepers have risen, stowed away the bedsteads, and are discussing the morning hookah. The minutes freshness of the air has gone, and it is as hot as at first.
Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room? What is it? Something borne on mens shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I stand back. A womans corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a bystander says, She died at midnight from the heat. So the city was of Death as well as Night after all.
Not many months ago the Queens Law stopped a few miles north of Thayetmyo on the Irrawaddy. There was no very strong Public Opinion up to that limit, but it existed to keep men in order. When the Government said that the Queens Law must carry up to Bhamo and the Chinese border the order was given, and some men whose desire was to be ever a little in advance of the rush of Respectability flocked forward with the troops. These were the men who could never pass examinations, and would have been too pronounced in their ideas for the administration of bureau-worked Provinces. The Supreme Government stepped in as soon as might be, with codes and regulations, and all but reduced New Burma to the dead Indian level; but there was a short time during which strong men were necessary and ploughed a field for themselves.
Among the forerunners of Civilisation was Georgie Porgie, reckoned by all who knew him a strong man. He held an appointment in Lower Burma when the order came to break the Frontier, and his friends called him Georgie Porgie because of the singularly Burmese-like manner in which he sang a song whose first line is something like the words Georgie Porgie. Most men who have been in Burma will know the song. It means: Puff, puff, puff, puff, great steamboat! Georgie sang it to his banjo, and his friends shouted with delight, so that you could hear them far away in the teak-forest.
When he went to Upper Burma he had no special regard for God or Man, but he knew how to make himself respected, and to carry out the mixed Military-Civil duties that fell to most mens share in those months. He did his office work and entertained, now and again, the detachments of fever-shaken soldiers who blundered through his part of the world in search of a flying party of dacoits. Sometimes he turned out and dressed down dacoits on his own account; for the country was still smouldering and would blaze when least expected. He enjoyed these charivaris, but the dacoits were not so amused. All the officials who came in contact with him departed with the idea that Georgie Porgie was a valuable person, well able to take care of himself, and, on that belief, he was left to his own devices.
At the end of a few months he wearied of his solitude, and cast about for company and refinement. The Queens Law had hardly begun to be felt in the country, and Public Opinion, which is more powerful than the Queens Law, had yet to come. Also, there was a custom in the country which allowed a white man to take to himself a wife of the Daughters of Heth upon due payment. The marriage was not quite so binding as is the nikkah ceremony among Mahomedans, but the wife was very pleasant.
When all our troops are back from Burma there will be a proverb in their mouths, As thrifty as a Burmese wife, and pretty English ladies will wonder what in the world it means.
The headman of the village next to Georgie Porgies post had a fair daughter who had seen Georgie Porgie and loved him from afar. When news went abroad that the Englishman with the heavy hand who lived in the stockade was looking for a housekeeper, the headman came in and explained that, for five hundred rupees down, he would entrust his daughter to Georgie Porgies keeping, to be maintained in all honour, respect, and comfort, with pretty dresses, according to the custom of the country. This thing was done, and Georgie Porgie never repented it.
He found his rough-and-tumble house put straight and made comfortable, his hitherto unchecked expenses cut down by one-half, and himself petted and made much of by his new acquisition, who sat at the head of his table and sang songs to him and ordered his Madrassee servants about, and was in every way as sweet and merry and honest and winning a little woman as the most exacting of bachelors could have desired. No race, men say who know, produces such good wives and heads of households as the Burmese. When the next detachment tramped by on the war-path the Subaltern in command found at Georgie Porgies table a hostess to be deferential to, a woman to be treated in every way as one occupying an assured position. When he gathered his men together next dawn and replunged into the jungle he thought regretfully of the nice little dinner and the pretty face, and envied Georgie Porgie from the bottom of his heart. Yet he was engaged to a girl at Home, and that is how some men are constructed.
The Burmese girls name was not a pretty one; but as she was promptly christened Georgina by Georgie Porgie, the blemish did not matter. Georgie Porgie thought well of the petting and the general comfort, and vowed that he had never spent five hundred rupees to a better end.
After three months of domestic life a great idea struck him. MatrimonyEnglish matrimonycould not be such a bad thing after all. If he were so thoroughly comfortable at the Back of Beyond with this Burmese girl who smoked cheroots, how much more comfortable would he be with a sweet English maiden who would not smoke cheroots, and would play upon a piano instead of a banjo? Also he had a desire to return to his kind, to hear a Band once more, and to feel how it felt to wear a dress-suit again. Decidedly, Matrimony would be a very good thing. He thought the matter out at length of evenings, while Georgina sang to him, or asked him why he was so silent, and whether she had done anything to offend him. As he thought, he smoked, and as he smoked he looked at Georgina, and in his fancy turned her into a fair, thrifty, amusing, merry, little English girl, with hair coming low down on her forehead, and perhaps a cigarette between her lips. Certainly, not a big, thick, Burma cheroot, of the brand that Georgina smoked. He would wed a girl with Georginas eyes and most of her ways. But not all. She could be improved upon. Then he blew thick smoke-wreaths through his nostrils and stretched himself. He would taste marriage. Georgina had helped him to save money, and there were six months leave due to him.
See here, little woman, he said, we must put by more money for these next three months. I want it. That was a direct slur on Georginas housekeeping; for she prided herself on her thrift; but since her God wanted money she would do her best.
You want money? she said with a little laugh. I have money. Look! She ran to her own room and fetched out a small bag of rupees. Of all that you give me, I keep back some. See! One hundred and seven rupees. Can you want more money than that? Take it. It is my pleasure if you use it. She spread out the money on the table and pushed it towards him with her quick, little, pale yellow fingers.
Georgie Porgie never referred to economy in the household again.
Three months later, after the dispatch and receipt of several mysterious letters which Georgina could not understand, and hated for that reason, Georgie Porgie said that he was going away, and she must return to her fathers house and stay there.
Georgina wept. She would go with her God from the worlds end to the worlds end. Why should she leave him? She loved him.
I am only going to Rangoon, said Georgie Porgie. I shall be back in a month, but it is safer to stay with your father. I will leave you two hundred rupees.
If you go for a month, what need of two hundred? Fifty are more than enough. There is some evil here. Do not go, or at least let me go with you.
Georgie Porgie does not like to remember that scene even at this date. In the end he got rid of Georgina by a compromise of seventy-five rupees. She would not take more. Then he went by steamer and rail to Rangoon.
The mysterious letters had granted him six months leave. The actual flight and an idea that he might have been treacherous hurt severely at the time, but as soon as the big steamer was well out into the blue, things were easier, and Georginas face, and the queer little stockaded house, and the memory of the rushes of shouting dacoits by night, the cry and struggle of the first man that he had ever killed with his own hand, and a hundred other more intimate things, faded and faded out of Georgie Porgies heart, and the vision of approaching England took its place. The steamer was full of men on leave, all rampantly jovial souls who had shaken off the dust and sweat of Upper Burma and were as merry as schoolboys. They helped Georgie Porgie to forget.
Then came England with its luxuries and decencies and comforts, and Georgie Porgie walked in a pleasant dream upon pavements of which he had nearly forgotten the ring, wondering why men in their senses ever left Town. He accepted his keen delight in his furlough as the reward of his services. Providence further arranged for him another and greater delightall the pleasures of a quiet English wooing, quite different from the brazen businesses of the East, when half the community stand back and bet on the result, and the other half wonder what Mrs. So-and-So will say to it.
It was a pleasant girl and a perfect summer, and a big country-house near Petworth where there are acres and acres of purple heather and high-grassed water-meadows to wander through. Georgie Porgie felt that he had at last found something worth the living for, and naturally assumed that the next thing to do was to ask the girl to share his life in India. She, in her ignorance, was willing to go. On this occasion there was no bartering with a village headman. There was a fine middle-class wedding in the country, with a stout Papa and a weeping Mamma, and a best-man in purple and fine linen, and six snub-nosed girls from the Sunday School to throw roses on the path between the tombstones up to the Church door. The local paper described the affair at great length, even down to giving the hymns in full. But that was because the Direction were starving for want of material.
Then came a honeymoon at Arundel, and the Mamma wept copiously before she allowed her one daughter to sail away to India under the care of Georgie Porgie the Bridegroom. Beyond any question, Georgie Porgie was immensely fond of his wife, and she was devoted to him as the best and greatest man in the world. When he reported himself at Bombay he felt justified in demanding a good station for his wifes sake; and, because he had made a little mark in Burma and was beginning to be appreciated, they allowed him nearly all that he asked for, and posted him to a station which we will call Sutrain. It stood upon several hills, and was styled officially a Sanitarium, for the good reason that the drainage was utterly neglected. Here Georgie Porgie settled down, and found married life come very naturally to him. He did not rave, as do many bridegrooms, over the strangeness and delight of seeing his own true love sitting down to breakfast with him every morning as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He had been there before, as the Americans say, and, checking the merits of his own present Grace by those of Georgina, he was more and more inclined to think that he had done well.
But there was no peace or comfort across the Bay of Bengal, under the teak-trees where Georgina lived with her father, waiting for Georgie Porgie to return. The headman was old, and remembered the war of 51. He had been to Rangoon, and knew something of the ways of the Kullahs. Sitting in front of his door in the evenings, he taught Georgina a dry philosophy which did not console her in the least.
The trouble was that she loved Georgie Porgie just as much as the French girl in the English History books loved the priest whose head was broken by the Kings bullies. One day she disappeared from the village, with all the rupees that Georgie Porgie had given her, and a very small smattering of Englishalso gained from Georgie Porgie.
The headman was angry at first, but lit a fresh cheroot and said something uncomplimentary about the sex in general. Georgina had started on a search for Georgie Porgie, who might be in Rangoon, or across the Black Water, or dead, for aught that she knew. Chance favoured her. An old Sikh policeman told her that Georgie Porgie had crossed the Black Water. She took a steerage-passage from Rangoon and went to Calcutta, keeping the secret of her search to herself.
In India every trace of her was lost for six weeks, and no one knows what trouble of heart she must have undergone.
She reappeared, four hundred miles north of Calcutta, steadily heading northwards, very worn and haggard, but very fixed in her determination to find Georgie Porgie. She could not understand the language of the people; but India is infinitely charitable, and the women-folk along the Grand Trunk gave her food. Something made her believe that Georgie Porgie was to be found at the end of that pitiless road. She may have seen a sepoy who knew him in Burma, but of this no one can be certain. At last, she found a regiment on the line of march, and met there one of the many subalterns whom Georgie Porgie had invited to dinner in the far off, old days of the dacoit-hunting. There was a certain amount of amusement among the tents when Georgina threw herself at the mans feet and began to cry. There was no amusement when her story was told; but a collection was made, and that was more to the point. One of the subalterns knew of Georgie Porgies where-abouts, but not of his marriage. So he told Georgina and she went her way joyfully to the north, in a railway carriage where there was rest for tired feet and shade for a dusty little head. The marches from the train through the hills into Sutrain were trying, but Georgina had money, and families journeying in bullock-carts gave her help. It was an almost miraculous journey, and Georgina felt sure that the good spirits of Burma were looking after her. The hill-road to Sutrain is a chilly stretch, and Georgina caught a bad cold. Still there was Georgie Porgie at the end of all the trouble to take her up in his arms and pet her, as he used to do in the old days when the stockade was shut for the night and he had approved of the evening meal. Georgina went forward as fast as she could; and her good spirits did her one last favour.
An Englishman stopped her, in the twilight, just at the turn of the road into Sutrain, saying, Good Heavens! What are you doing here?
He was Gillis, the man who had been Georgie Porgies assistant in Upper Burma, and who occupied the next post to Georgie Porgies in the jungle. Georgie Porgie had applied to have him to work with at Sutrain because he liked him.
I have come, said Georgina simply. It was such a long way, and I have been months in coming. Where is his house?
Gillis gasped. He had seen enough of Georgina in the old times to know that explanations would be useless. You cannot explain things to the Oriental. You must show.
Ill take you there, said Gillis, and he led Georgina off the road, up the cliff, by a little pathway, to the back of a house set on a platform cut into the hillside.
The lamps were just lit, but the curtains were not drawn. Now look, said Gillis, stopping in front of the drawing-room window. Georgina looked and saw Georgie Porgie and the Bride.
She put her hand up to her hair, which had come out of its top-knot and was straggling about her face. She tried to set her ragged dress in order, but the dress was past pulling straight, and she coughed a queer little cough, for she really had taken a very bad cold. Gillis looked, too, but while Georgina only looked at the Bride once, turning her eyes always on Georgie Porgie, Gillis looked at the Bride all the time.
What are you going to do? said Gillis, who held Georgina by the wrist, in case of any unexpected rush into the lamplight. Will you go in and tell that English woman that you lived with her husband?
No, said Georgina faintly. Let me go. I am going away. I swear that I am going away. She twisted herself free and ran off into the dark.
Poor little beast! said Gillis, dropping on to the main road. Id ha given her something to get back to Burma with. What a narrow shave though! And that angel would never have forgiven it.
This seems to prove that the devotion of Gillis was not entirely due to his affection for Georgie Porgie.
The Bride and the Bridegroom came out into the verandah after dinner, in order that the smoke of Georgie Porgies cheroots might not hang in the new drawing-room curtains.
What is that noise down there? said the Bride. Both listened
Oh, said Georgie Porgie, I suppose some brute of a hillman has been beating his wife.
Beatinghiswife! How ghastly! said the Bride. Fancy your beating me! She slipped an arm round her husbands waist, and, leaning her head against his shoulder, looked out across the cloud-filled valley in deep content and security.
But it was Georgina crying, all by herself, down the hillside, among the stones of the watercourse where the washermen wash the clothes.
THIS was how it happened; and the truth is also an allegory of Empire.
I met him at the corner of my garden, an empty basket on his head, and an unclean cloth round his loins. That was all the property to which Naboth had the shadow of a claim when I first saw him. He opened our acquaintance by begging. He was very thin and showed nearly as many ribs as his basket; and he told me a long story about fever and a lawsuit, and an iron cauldron that had been seized by the court in execution of a decree. I put my hand into my pocket to help Naboth, as kings of the East have helped alien adventurers to the loss of their kingdoms. A rupee had hidden in my waistcoat lining. I never knew it was there, and gave the trove to Naboth as a direct gift from Heaven. He replied that I was the only legitimate Protector of the Poor he had ever known.
Next morning he reappeared, a little fatter in the round, and curled himself into knots in the front verandah. He said I was his father and his mother, and the direct descendant of all the gods in his Pantheon, besides controlling the destinies of the universe. He himself was but a sweetmeat-seller, and much less important than the dirt under my feet. I had heard this sort of thing before, so I asked him what he wanted. My rupee, quoth Naboth, had raised him to the everlasting heavens, and he wished to prefer a request. He wished to establish a sweetmeat-pitch near the house of his benefactor, to gaze on my revered countenance as I went to and fro illumining the world. I was graciously pleased to give permission, and he went away with his head between his knees.
Now at the far end of my garden the ground slopes toward the public road, and the slope is crowned with a thick shrubbery. There is a short carriage-road from the house to the Mall, which passes close to the shrubbery. Next afternoon I saw that Naboth had seated himself at the bottom of the slope, down in the dust of the public road, and in the full glare of the sun, with a starved basket of greasy sweets in front of him. He had gone into trade once more on the strength of my munificent donation, and the ground was as Paradise by my honoured favour. Remember, there was only Naboth, his basket, the sunshine, and the gray dust when the sap of my Empire first began.
Next day he had moved himself up the slope nearer to my shrubbery, and waved a palm-leaf fan to keep the flies off the sweets. So I judged that he must have done a fair trade.
Four days later I noticed that he had backed himself and his basket under the shadow of the shrubbery, and had tied an Isabella-coloured rag between two branches in order to make more shade. There were plenty of sweets in his basket. I thought that trade must certainly be looking up.
Seven weeks later the Government took up a plot of ground for a Chief Court close to the end of my compound, and employed nearly four hundred coolies on the foundations. Naboth bought a blue and white striped blanket, a brass lamp-stand, and a small boy, to cope with the rush of trade, which was tremendous.
Five days later he bought a huge, fat, red-backed account-book, and a glass ink-stand. Thus I saw that the coolies had been getting into his debt, and that commerce was increasing on legitimate lines of credit. Also I saw that the one basket had grown into three, and that Naboth had backed and hacked into the shrubbery, and made himself a nice little clearing for the proper display of the basket, the blanket, the books, and the boy.
One week and five days later he had built a mud fire-place in the clearing, and the fat account-book was overflowing. He said that God created few Englishmen of my kind, and that I was the incarnation of all human virtues. He offered me some of his sweets as tribute, and by accepting these I acknowledged him as my feudatory under the skirt of my protection.
Three weeks later I noticed that the boy was in the habit of cooking Naboth’s mid-day meal for him, and Naboth was beginning to grow a stomach. He had hacked away more of my shrubbery, and owned another and a fatter account-book.
Eleven weeks later Naboth had eaten his way nearly through that shrubbery, and there was a reed hut with a bedstead outside it, standing in the little glade that he had eroded. Two dogs and a baby slept on the bedstead. So I fancied Naboth had taken a wife. He said that he had, by my favour, done this thing, and that I was several times finer than Krishna.
Six weeks and two days later a mud wall had grown up at the back of the hut. There were fowls in front and it smelt a little. The Municipal Secretary said that a cess-pool was forming in the public road from the drainage of my compound, and that I must take steps to clear it away. I spoke to Naboth. He said I was Lord Paramount of his earthly concerns, and the garden was all my own property, and sent me some more sweets in a second-hand duster.
Two months later a coolie bricklayer was killed in a scuffle that took place opposite Naboth’s Vineyard. The Inspector of Police said it was a serious case; went into my servants’ quarters; insulted my butler’s wife, and wanted to arrest my butler. The curious thing about the murder was that most of the coolies were drunk at the time. Naboth pointed out that my name was a strong shield between him and his enemies, and he expected that another baby would be born to him shortly.
Four months later the hut was all mud walls, very solidly built, and Naboth had used most of my shrubbery for his five goats. A silver watch and an aluminium chain shone upon his very round stomach. My servants were alarmingly drunk several times, and used to waste the day with Naboth when they got the chance. I spoke to Naboth. He said, by my favour and the glory of my countenance, he would make all his women- folk ladies, and that if any one hinted that he was running an illicit still under the shadow of the tamarisks, why, I, his Suzerain, was to prosecute.
A week later he hired a man to make several dozen square yards of trellis-work to put round the back of his hut, that his women-folk might be screened from the public gaze. The man went away in the evening, and left his day’s work to pave the short cut from the public road to my house. I was driving home in the dusk, and turned the corner by Naboth’s Vineyard quickly. The next thing I knew was that the horses of the phaeton were stamping and plunging in the strongest sort of bamboo net-work. Both beasts came down. One rose with nothing more than chipped knees. The other was so badly kicked that I was forced to shoot him.
Naboth is gone now, and his hut is ploughed into its native mud with sweetmeats instead of salt for a sign that the place is accursed. I have built a summer-house to overlook the end of the garden, and it is as a fort on my frontier whence I guard my Empire.
I know exactly how Ahab felt. He has been shamefully misrepresented in the Scriptures.
When the Governor-Generals great dance (that he gives yearly at the latter end of November) was finisht, I had gone to mine own room which looks over that sullen, un-English stream, the Hoogly, scarce so sober as I might have been. Now, roaring drunk in the West is but fuddled in the East, and I was drunk Nor-Nor Easterly as Mr. Shakespeare might have said. Yet, in spite of my liquor, the cool night winds (though I have heard that they breed chills and fluxes innumerable) sobered me somewhat; and I remembered that I had been but a little wrung and wasted by all the sicknesses of the past four months, whereas those young bloods that came eastward with me in the same ship had been all, a month back, planted to Eternity in the foul soil north of Writers Buildings. So then, I thanked God mistily (though, to my shame, I never kneeled down to do so) for license to live, at least till March should be upon us again. Indeed, we that were alive (and our number was less by far than those who had gone to their last account in the hot weather late past) had made very merry that evening, by the ramparts of the Fort, over this kindness of Providence; though our jests were neither witty nor such as I should have liked my Mother to hear.
When I had lain down (or rather thrown me on my bed) and the fumes of my drink had a little cleared away, I found that I could get no sleep for thinking of a thousand things that were better left alone. First, and it was a long time since I had thought of her, the sweet face of Kitty Somerset, drifted as it might have been drawn in a picture, across the foot of my bed, so plainly, that I almost thought she had been present in the body. Then I remembered how she drove me to this accursed country to get rich, that I might the more quickly marry her, our parents on both sides giving their consent; and then how she thought better (or worse may be) of her troth, and wed Tom Sanderson but a short three months after I had sailed. From Kitty I fell a musing on Mrs. Vansuythen, a tall pale woman with violet eyes that had come to Calcutta from the Dutch Factory at Chinsura, and had set all our young men, and not a few of the factors, by the ears. Some of our ladies, it is true, said that she had never a husband or marriage-lines at all; but women, and specially those who have led only indifferent good lives themselves, are cruel hard one on another. Besides, Mrs. Vansuythen was far prettier than them all. She had been most gracious to me at the Governor-Generals rout, and indeed I was looked upon by all as her preux chevalierwhich is French for a much worse word. Now, whether I cared so much as the scratch of a pin for this same Mrs. Vansuythen (albeit I had vowed eternal love three days after we met) I knew not then nor did till later on; but mine own pride, and a skill in the small sword that no man in Calcutta could equal, kept me in her affections. So that I believed I worshipt her.
When I had dismist her violet eyes from my thoughts, my reason reproacht me for ever having followed her at all; and I saw how the one year that I had lived in this land had so burnt and seared my mind with the flames of a thousand bad passions and desires, that I had aged ten months for each one in the Devils school. Whereat I thought of my Mother for a while, and was very penitent: making in my sinful tipsy mood a thousand vows of reformationall since broken, I fear me, again and again. To-morrow, says I to myself, I will live cleanly for ever. And I smiled dizzily (the liquor being still strong in me) to think of the dangers I had escaped; and built all manner of fine Castles in Spain, whereof a shadowy Kitty Somerset that had the violet eyes and the sweet slow speech of Mrs. Vansuythen, was always Queen.
Lastly, a very fine and magnificent courage (that doubtless had its birth in Mr. Hastings Madeira) grew upon me, till it seemed that I could become Governor-General, Nawab, Prince, ay, even the Great Mogul himself, by the mere wishing of it. Wherefore, taking my first steps, random and unstable enough, towards my new kingdom, I kickt my servants sleeping without till they howled and ran from me, and called Heaven and Earth to witness that I, Duncan Parrenness, was a Writer in the service of the Company and afraid of no man. Then, seeing that neither the Moon nor the Great Bear were minded to accept my challenge, I lay down again and must have fallen asleep.
I was waked presently by my last words repeated two or three times, and I saw that there had come into the room a drunken man, as I thought, from Mr. Hastings rout. He sate down at the foot of my bed in all the world as it belonged to him, and I took note, as well as I could, that his face was somewhat like mine own grown older, save when it changed to the face of the Governor-General or my father, dead these six months. But this seemed to me only natural, and the due result of too much wine; and I was so angered at his entry all unannounced, that I told him, not over civilly, to go. To all my words he made no answer whatever, only saying slowly, as though it were some sweet morsel: Writer in the Companys service and afraid of no man. Then he stops short, and turning round sharp upon me, says that one of my kidney need fear neither man nor devil; that I was a brave young man, and like enough, should I live so long, to be Governor-General. But for all these things (and I supposed that he meant thereby the changes and chances of our shifty life in these parts) I must pay my price. By this time I had sobered somewhat, and being well waked out of my first sleep, was disposed to look upon the matter as a tipsy mans jest. So, says I merrily: And what price shall I pay for this palace of mine, which is but twelve feet square, and my five poor pagodas a month? The devil take you and your jesting: I have paid my price twice over in sickness. At that moment my man turns full toward me: so that by the moonlight I could see every line and wrinkle of his face. Then my drunken mirth died out of me, as I have seen the waters of our great rivers die away in one night; and I, Duncan Parrenness, who was afraid of no man, was taken with a more deadly terror than I hold it has ever been the lot of mortal man to know. For I saw that his face was my very own, but marked and lined and scarred with the furrows of disease and much evil livingas I once, when I was (Lord help me) very drunk indeed, have seen mine own face, all white and drawn and grown old, in a mirror. I take it that any man would have been even more greatly feared than I; for I am in no way wanting in courage.
After I had lain still for a little, sweating in my agony, and waiting until I should awake from this terrible dream (for dream I knew it to be), he says again that I must pay my price; and a little after, as though it were to be given in pagodas and sicca rupees: What price will you pay? Says I, very softly: For Gods sake let me be, whoever you are, and I will mend my ways from to-night. Says he, laughing a little at my words, but otherwise making no motion of having heard them: Nay, I would only rid so brave a young ruffler as yourself of much that will be a great hindrance to you on your way through life in the Indies; for believe me, and here he looks full on me once more, there is no return. At all this rigmarole, which I could not then understand, I was a good deal put aback and waited for what should come next. Says he very calmly: Give me your trust in man. At that I saw how heavy would be my price, for I never doubted but that he could take from me all that he asked, and my head was, through terror and wakefulness, altogether cleared of the wine I had drunk. So I takes him up very short, crying that I was not so wholly bad as he would make believe, and that I trusted my fellows to the full as much as they were worthy of it. It was none of my fault, says I, if one-half of them were liars and the other half deserved to be burnt in the hand, and I would once more ask him to have done with his questions. Then I stopped, a little afraid, it is true, to have let my tongue so run away with me, but he took no notice of this, and only laid his hand lightly on my left breast and I felt very cold there for a while. Then he says, laughing more: Give me your faith in women. At that I started in my bed as though I had been stung, for I thought of my sweet mother in England, and for a while fancied that my faith in Gods best creatures could neither be shaken nor stolen from me. But later, Myselfs hard eyes being upon me, I fell to thinking, for the second time that night, of Kitty (she that jilted me and married Tom Sanderson) and of Mistress Vansuythen, whom only my devilish pride made me follow, and how she was even worse than Kitty, and I worst of them allseeing that with my lifes work to be done, I must needs go dancing down the Devils swept and garnished causeway, because, forsooth, there was a light womans smile at the end of it. And I thought that all women in the world were either like Kitty or Mistress Vansuythen (as indeed they have ever since been to me), and this put me to such an extremity of rage and sorrow, that I was beyond word glad when Myselfs hand fell again on my left breast, and I was no more troubled by these follies.
After this he was silent for a little, and I made sure that he must go or I awake ere long; but presently he speaks again (and very softly) that I was a fool to care for such follies as those he had taken from me, and that ere he went he would only ask me for a few other trifles such as no man, or for matter of that boy either, would keep about him in this country. And so it happened that he took from out of my very heart as it were, looking all the time into my face with my own eyes, as much as remained to me of my boys soul and conscience. This was to me a far more terrible loss than the two that I had suffered before. For though, Lord help me, I had travelled far enough from all paths of decent or godly living, yet there was in me, though I myself write it, a certain goodness of heart which, when I was sober (or sick) made me very sorry of all that I had done before the fit came on me. And this I lost wholly: having in place thereof another deadly coldness at the heart. I am not, as I have before said, ready with my pen, so I fear that what I have just written may not be readily understood. Yet there be certain times in a young mans life, when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood: as our staring Indian day changes into night with never so much as the gray of twilight to temper the two extremes. This shall perhaps make my state more clear, if it be remembered that my torment was ten times as great as comes in the natural course of nature to any man. At that time I dared not think of the change that had come over me, and all in one night: though I have often thought of it since. I have paid the price, says I, my teeth chattering, for I was deadly cold, and what is my return? At this time it was nearly dawn, and Myself had begun to grow pale and thin against the white light in the east, as my mother used to tell me is the custom of ghosts and devils and the like. He made as if he would go, but my words stopt him and he laughedas I remember that I laughed when I ran Angus Macalister through the sword-arm last August, because he said that Mrs. Vansuythen was no better than she should be. What return?says he, catching up my last wordsWhy, strength to live as long as God or the Devil pleases, and so long as you live my young master, my gift. With that he puts something into my hand, though it was still too dark to see what it was, and when next I lookt up he was gone.
When the light came I made shift to behold his gift, and saw that it was a little piece of dry bread.
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