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                        The Mercy of the Lord






                        The Mercy of the Lord




                                  By

                          Flora Annie Steel

                              Author of

       'On the Face of the Waters,' 'A Sovereign Remedy,' etc.





                               New York

                       George H. Doran Company





                         _Printed in England_





NEW YORK; GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, 1914.






                               CONTENTS


THE MERCY OF THE LORD.

SALT DUTY.

THE WISDOM OF OUR LORD GANESH.

THE SON OF A KING.

THE BIRTH OF FIRE.

THE GIFT OF BATTLE.

THE VALUE OF A VOTE.

SALT OF THE EARTH.

AN APPRECIATED RUPEE.

THE LAKE OF HIGH HOPE.

RETAINING FEES.

HIS CHANCE.

THE FLATTERER FOR GAIN.

A MAIDEN'S PRAYER.

SILVER SPEECH AND GOLDEN SILENCE.

THE FOOTSTEPS OF A DOG.

THE FINDING OF PRIVATE FLANIGAN.

REX ET IMP:

THERE AROSE A MAN.

DRY GOODS.

THE REGENERATION OF DAISY BELL.

A SONG WITHOUT WORDS.

SEGREGATION.

SLAVE OF THE COURT.






                        THE MERCY OF THE LORD


                 "God movesn--a--mystere'ras way
                        Iswon--derstuper--form."

Craddock was polishing the brass of his safety valve and singing the
while at high pressure between set teeth: his choice of a ditty
determined by one of his transitory lapses into conventional
righteousness. The cause of which in the present instance being an
equally transient admiration for a good little Eurasian girl fresh from
her convent.

As the sun--which shines equally on the just and the unjust--flamed on
his red face and glowed from his corn-coloured beard it seemed to
me--waiting in the comparative coolth of the pointsman's mud-oven
shelter till the one mail train of the day should appear and disappear,
leaving the ribbon of rail which spanned the desert world to its
horizon free for our passaging--that both he and his engine radiated
heat: that they gave out--as the burning bush or the flaming swords of
the paradise-protectors must have given out--a message of fiery warning
that suited the words he sang:


                  "Eplants 'isfootsteps--inthesea."


Craddock punctuated the rhythm with an appropriate stop of shrill steam
which ought to have startled me: but it did not, because my outward
senses had suddenly become slaves to my memory. The desert was a garden
full of cool fragrance which comes with the close of an Indian day, and
the only sound to be heard in it was a glad young voice repeating these
words:


"Oh! God of the Battle! Have mercy! Have mercy! Have mercy!"


"Bravo! young Bertram!" said someone--even those who scarcely
knew whether Bertram were his Christian or his surname called him
that--"Easy to see you're fresh from the Higher Standard."

Young Bertram smiled down on us from the plinth of the marble steps
leading up to the marble summer house which stood in the centre of this
Garden-of-Dead-Kings.

Posed there on his pedestal, holding orb-like in his raised right hand
the battered bronze cannon ball whose inscription--roughly lettered in
snaky spirals--he had just translated, young Bertram reminded me of the
young Apollo.

"You bet," he answered, gaily. "But what does it mean, here on this
blessed ball? Who knows the story?--for there is one, of course."

The company looked at me, partly because as a civilian such knowledge
was expected of me; mostly because I was responsible for the invasion
of this peaceful Eastern spot by a restless, curious horde of Westerns;
my only excuse for the desecration being, that as the most despicable
product of our Indian rule, a grass widower bound to entertain, I had
naturally clutched at the novelty of a picnic supper and dance some few
miles out of the station.

Perhaps, had I seen the garden first, I might have relented, but I took
it on trust from my orderly, who assured me it held all things
necessary for my salvation, including a marble floor on which a drugget
could be stretched.

It held much more. There was in it an atmosphere--not all orange
blossom and roses, though these drugged the senses--which to my mind
made a touch of tragedy lurk even in our laughter.

Though, in sooth, we brought part of the tragedy with us: for a
frontier war was on, and all the men and half the women present, knew
that the route might come any moment.

Some few--I, as chief district officer, the colonel and his
adjutant--were aware that it probably would come before morning:
but ours were not the sober faces. Our plans were laid; all things,
even the arrangements for the women and the children and the
unfit-for-service, were cut and dried: but the certainty that someone
must--as the phrase runs--take over documents, and the uncertainty as
to who the unlucky beggar would be, lent care to a young heart or two.

Not, however, to young Bertram. As he stood questioning me with his
frank blue eyes, even the white garments he had donned (because, he
said, "It might be a beastly time before he wore decent togs again")
told the same tale as his glad voice--the tale of that boundless hope
which holds ever the greatest tragedy of life.

"Who is that pretty boy?" said a low soft voice at my elbow.

I did not answer the spoken question of the voice, but as I replied to
the unspoken question of many eyes I was conscious that of all the many
incongruous elements I had imported into that Eastern garden this
Western woman who had appraised young Bertram's beauty was the most
incongruous. It was not the Paris frock and hat, purchased on the way
out--she had only rejoined her husband the day before--which made her
so. It was the woman inside them. I knew the type so well, and my soul
rose in revolt that she should soil his youth with her approval.

"I've no doubt there are stories," I replied; "but I don't happen to
know them. I'm as much a stranger here as you all are. So come! let us
look round till it's dark enough to dance."

"Dark enough to sit out, he means," said someone to the Paris frock and
hat, whereat there was a laugh, but not so general and not half so
hearty as the one which greeted young Bertram's gravity as he replaced
the cannon ball on the plinth with the profound remark:

"Something about a woman, you bet."

"Do introduce me!" pleaded the Paris frock and hat as the lad came
down, bearing the brunt of chaff gallantly; but I pretended not to
hear, though I knew such diplomacy was vain with women of her
type--women whose refinement makes them shameless.

Yes! she was a strange anomaly in that garden, though, Heaven
knows, it appealed frankly enough to the senses. So frankly that it
absorbed even such meretricious Western additions as cosy corners
and iced champagne--on tables laid for two--without encroaching a
hair's--breadth on the inviolable spiritual kingdom of the ivory orange
blossom, the silver jasmine stars, even the red hearts of the roses.

They were lighting up the lines of the cressets about the dancing floor
when we began to reassemble, and as each star of light quivered into
being, the misty unreal radiance grew around the fretted marble of the
summer house until arch and pilaster seemed to lose solidity, and the
whole building, leaving its body behind in shining sleep, found freedom
ass a palace of dreams.

And there, as a foreground to its mystical beauty, was young Bertram
dangling his long legs from the pedestal and nursing the battered old
bronze ball on his lap as if it had been a baby.

"I've found out all about it," he said, cheerfully. "That chap"--he
pointed to a figure below him--"told me a splendid yarn, and if you
lite,"--he turned to me--"as they haven't done lighting up yet, and we
can't dance till they finish, he could tell it again. I could
translate, you know, for those who can't understand."

The innocent pride made me smile, until the Paris frock said, "_I_
shall be so grateful if you will, Mr. Bertram," in a tone of soft
friendliness which proclaimed her success and my failure. Both,
however, I recognised were inevitable when I remembered that she was
the wife of the lad's captain, a silent, bullet-headed Briton of whom
he chose to make a hero--as boys will of older men who are not worthy
to unlatch their shoes.

The figure rose and salaamed. It was that of a professional snake
charmer, who had evidently come in hopes of being allowed to exhibit
his skill: for his flat basket of snakes, slung to a bambu yoke, lay
beside him.

"And it _was_ about a woman, as I said," continued young Bertram, with
the same innocent pride. "She was of his tribe--the snaky tribe, and
so, of course, he knows about it all."

I had my doubts--the man looked a cunning scoundrel--but there was an
awkward five minutes to fill up, so chairs and cushions were
requisitioned, and on them and the marble steps we circled round to
listen: the Paris dress, I noticed, choosing the latter, close to the
translator.

He performed his task admirably, catching not only the meaning of the
words but the rhythm of the snake charmer's voice, and so quickly, too,
that the message for the East, and for the West, seemed one; yet it
seemed to come from neither of the speakers.

"'Oh, God of the Battle! have mercy, have mercy, have mercy!' Such was
her prayer to the Bright One, and this is the tale of it:

"Straight was her soul as the saraph who tempted Eve-mother, but
crooked her body as snakes that deal death in the darkness--crookt in
her childhood--crookt in the siege of the town by a spent shot which
struck her, asleep in her cradle (the ball that you nurse on your knee,
sahib--they found it beside her--her crushed limbs caressing the foe
that destroyed her).

"She grew in this garden, a cripple, but fair still of face, and twice
cursed in such gifts of beauty all barren and bitter--so bitter she
veiled it away, hiding loveliness, hatefulness, both, from the eyes of
the others: a soul stricken sore ere the battle began, yet insatiate of
life, insatiate of blessing and cursing, insatiate of power. And, look
you! she gained it! Most strangely, for fluttering through thickets
like birds that are wounded and dragging herself like a snake to the
blossoms, she threaded the jasmine to necklets and pressed out the
roses to perfume, so giving to women uncrippled love-lures for the
fathers of sons.

"Hid in the jasmine and screened by the trails of the roses, here, on
this spot stood her chamber of charm for the secret distilling of
_itr_, the silent repeating of ritual, the murmur of musical _mantras_.

"And none dare to enter since Death lurked unseen in the thickets, and
serpents, her kinsmen, slid swift to the threshold to guard it, and
watched with still eyes her command.

"'It was witchcraft,' they said, with a shudder, those fortunate women,
yet came in the dusk for her charms!

"But she gave them not always, for years brought her wisdom. She learnt
the love lore of the flowers, the close starry heart of the jasmine,
the open red heart of the rose, told their dream of fair death through
the ripening of seed, and her voice would grow bitter with scorn....

"'Go! find your own lures for your lovers--I work for the seed--for the
harvest of men.'

"High perched on the wall of the city the balcony women waxed wroth. It
was money to them till the cripple who fought them with flowers
prevailed in the battle for life to the world.

"And Narghiza, the chief of them all, felt her youth on the wane....

"So, one night in the darkness, ere dawning, men crept to the garden
where only the women might enter. Men, heated by wine and by lust,
inflamed by the balcony lies--yea! the witch who wrought evil to
all--who had killed Gulanâr in her prime by a wasting--whose frown was
a curse, must be reckoned with, killed, and her devilish chamber
destroyed.

"But the sound of the rustling leaves as the snakes slid soft in the
darkness made even the wine bibbers think, so that secret and soft as
the snakes in the thickets they crept back to safety; till there--in
the darkness, the fragrance of flowers, but one man remained, a man who
grew old! Beautiful, tired of the life he had squandered, and reckless,
yet angered because of the girl who had wasted to death--a girl he had
paid for.

"'Cowards!' he said with a smile, and crept on in the dark. A rustle,
but not of a snake! In the leaves a faint glimmer of white, and a
voice--such a beautiful voice!

"'In this garden of women what seek you, my lord?'

"'I seek _you_, for your death.' But as swift as his hand with the
dagger, around him there rose in a shimmering shelter the wide-hooded
curves of the serpents, their still, watchful eyes giving out a cold
gleaming that shone like a halo about her.

"'What harm have I done?' Such a beautiful voice! 'Come and see, if you
will.'

"On his head fell the spent leaves of roses, the frail stars of jasmine
were hers as she dragged herself on, and he followed through darkness
and fragrance and flowers. The serpents lay thick on the threshold; she
stayed them with this:

"'Wait, friends, till he touches me.'

"Opened the door and said scornfully:

"'There stands my charm.'

"The dim light of the cresset showed emptiness save for yon ball with
its legend ('tis scratched, as you see, in the shape of a snake,
sahib). She read it aloud, and then turned to him:

"'Yea! that is all! I appeal to the God of the Battle of Life, and I
call unto Him to have mercy, have mercy, have mercy--What mercy He
chooses----'

"Her voice sank to silence. The cresset's dim light showed the folds of
her veiling to him, and to her showed his beauty of face as he knelt to
her crippledom.

"'Mercy!'--his voice was a whisper--'have mercy--the charm lies
within--let me see it....'

"His hand sought the folds of her veil and, responsive, the shelter of
snakes rose about her.

"'Wait, friends, till he touches me!'

"Swift, with quick fear in it, came the stern warning, and then there
was silence.

"Oh! beautiful night with spent stars of the jasmine, spent leaves of
the roses, spent life nigh to death 'mid its darkness, its fragrance.

"Oh! beautiful face, free of veiling with spent stars of eyes and spent
rose leaves of lips.

"'My beloved!'

"Like a sigh came the whisper, and slowly as stars in the evening their
eyes grew to brightness, and closer and closer their lips grew to
kisses.

"'_Wait, friends, till he touches me_.'

"That was her order, and swift to the second, the snakes struck between
them.

"Oh, beautiful death by the kiss of a lover! Oh, merciful poison of
passion."

The sing-song ceased, and, as if to take its place, the first notes of
the _Liebestraum_ waltz sounded from the rose and jasmine thicket in
which the band had been concealed.

"That's a mercy of the Lord, anyhow," laughed some young Philistine. "I
thought they'd never stop, or the band begin!"

In a moment the listening circle had changed into an eager hurrying of
couples towards the dancing floor.

But young Bertram still sat on the pilaster nursing the old bronze
ball, his glad young face strangely sober.

"I think this is our dance," said the Paris frock, in a voice of icy
allurement which positively rasped my nerves.

Young Bertram sprang to the ground hastily.

"I beg your pardon! By George, what's that?"

He had upset one of the snake charmer's flat baskets, and there was a
general stampede as the occupants slid out.

"Don't be alarmed," I cried, "they always have their fangs drawn, and
he will get them back in a moment."

Even as I spoke the hollow quavering of the charmer's gourd flute
began, and three snakes stayed their flight to sit up on their tails
and sway drowsily to the rhythm.

"There was a fourth one, wasn't there?" said young Bertram. "It slipped
our way, didn't it?"

He spoke to the Paris frock, which had taken refuge on the opposite
pilaster, so that the whole expanse of the wide marble steps now lay
between them.

"Huzoor, no!" interrupted the owner of the snakes, hastily, "there were
but three--there could only have been three--for see! my serpents obey
me."

He was slipping the brutes back to prison again as he spoke, but I
noticed his eyes were restless.

"Are you quite sure?" I asked.

He gave me a furtive glance, then carelessly held up a loathsome
five-footer. "Cobras like these are very easily counted, Huzoor;
besides, as the Presence said, they are all fangless."

The one whose jaws he as carelessly prized open certainly was, and I
should have dismissed doubt had not young Bertram at that moment taken
up the flute gourd, and with the gay remark, "Let me have a shot at
it," commenced--out of fastidiousness as to the mouthpiece, no
doubt--to blow into it upside down.

I never saw fear better expressed in any face than on the snake
charmer's when he heard the indescribable sound which echoed out into
the garden. It grew green as without the least ceremony he snatched the
instrument away.

"The Presence must not do that--the snakes do not like strangers."

Young Bertram laughed, "Nor the noise, I expect! The beastly thing
makes a worse row wrong side up than right--doesn't it?"

What the Paris frock replied I do not know, as they were already
hurrying up to make the most of the remaining dance.

Not that there was any necessity for hurry to judge by the number of
times I saw his white raiment and her fancy frills floating round
together during the next hour or so.

The Adjutant--a man I particularly disliked (possibly because he seemed
to me the antithesis of young Bertram)--remarked on it also when he
found me out seeking solitude in one of the latticed minarets.

"Going it!" he said, cynically. "He won't be quite such a young fool
when he comes down from the hills."

I turned on him in absolute dismay. "The hills? but surely you're going
on service?"

The Adjutant shrugged his shoulders. "Someone has to take over, and
he'll soon console himself."

I felt I could have kicked him, and was glad that the "Roast Beef"
called me to my duties as host.

They had laid the supper table where we had listened to the snake
charmer's chant; somehow through all the laughter I seemed to hear that
refrain going on: "Oh! God of the Battle! have mercy! have mercy! have
mercy!"

What mercy would she show him? None. And what chance would he have in
an atmosphere like that of Semoorie? None. Even the husband, whom
rumour said was bullet-headed to some purpose, would be away.

We were very merry in spite, or perhaps because of, an insistent trend
of thought towards impending change, and I was just about to propose
the health of my guests with due discreet allusion to the still
doubtful future when it was settled by the appearance of a telegraph
peon.

In the instant hush which followed, I observed irrelevantly that our
brief feasting had made a horrid mess of what not half an hour before
had seemed food for the gods!

Then the Colonel looked up with a grim conscious smile which fitted ill
with the fragrant lantern-lit garden behind him.

"The route has come, gentlemen, we start to-morrow at noon."

He checked a quick start to their feet on the part of some of the
youngsters by addressing himself to me:

"But as everything has been cut and dry for some days we needn't spoil
sport yet awhile. There's time for a dance or two."

"In that case I'll go on," I replied, "and with greater will than
ever."

Somehow it never struck me what was likely to happen, seeing that young
Bertram was junior subaltern and in addition the pride of his fellows,
until I heard the calls for "our speaker" to return thanks. He had been
sitting, of course, next to the Paris frock, and beside him had been
the Adjutant, looking, I had noticed, as if he thought he ought to be
in young Bertram's place. I wish to God he had been.

They both rose at the same moment; the Adjutant to work, no
doubt--for, pushing his chair back, he left the table; young Bertram to
his task of responding.

I saw at once that he knew his fate. I think he had that instant been
told of it by the Adjutant: and perhaps in a way it was wiser and
kinder to tell him before--so to speak--he gave himself away.

He stood for an appreciable time as if dazed, then pulling himself
together, spoke steadily, if a trifle artificially.

"Mr. Commissioner, Ladies, and Gentlemen! I thought a minute ago that I
was the last person to return thanks for our host's regrets and good
wishes. I know now that I am really the only person in the regiment who
could do it honestly; because I am the only person who can sympathise
with him thoroughly--who can, like he does, regret the regiment's
departure, and--and at the same time give it God-speed, while I--I----"

He paused, and suddenly the strenuous effort after conventional
banalities left his young face free to show its grief--almost its
anger.

"It's no use my trying to talk bosh," he broke out, and swept away by
realities: "As you know, I'd give everything not to say God-speed, but
I suppose I must."

And then a sudden remembrance seemed to come to him, he turned in swift
impulse, his face alight, leapt to the pedestal behind him, and there
he was again with that blessed battered old ball in his raised right
hand.

"And I don't think I can do it better than this does it. This----" his
voice had the notes of life's divine tragedy of hope in it--"fits us
all--fits everything!--And so," his eyes sought mine, "we thank you,
sir, for all and everything, and wish that the God of the Battle may
have mercy all round."

For a second he stood there, almost triumphant, beautiful as a god,
below him the guttering candles and disorder of the supper table, above
him the stars of heaven: then, with a light laugh, he was calling for
the band to begin and heading the hurried return to the dancing floor.

As he passed me, gallant and gay, I heard the Paris frock quote in a
consoling whisper, "They also serve who only stand and wait."

The grateful admiration of his eyes told the delicacy of her art. I
realised this again when shortly after I had an opportunity for one
word of consolation also.

"She said that, too," he replied, his voice trembling a little. "She's
been awfully good to me, you know--but so you all are--and I daresay it
is all right."

I knew that to be impossible, but I resolved to do my level best to
protect him.

Then my duties claimed me. Despite the Colonel's coolness, the party
began to drift away to preparations, their measure of responsibility
shown by the order of their going, until only a dozen or so of
lighthearted youngsters were left for another and yet another waltz,
the prime instigator of delay being, of course, young Bertram.

I never saw the lad look better. An almost reckless vitality seemed to
radiate from and invade the still scented peace of the whole garden.

I found myself trying to evade it by wandering off to the furthest,
stillest corner, where I could smoke in peace till called on finally to
say good-night--or good-morning--to my guests.

I must have fallen asleep in one of the latticed minarets, and slept
long, for when I woke a grey radiance was in the sky that showed above
the scented orange trees. Dawn was breaking, the garden held no sound
save a faint rustle as of leaves. And not a sign remained of Western
intrusion. The swiftness of Indian service had taken away as it had
brought. As I made my way to where we had danced and supped, the
immediate past seemed a dream, and I strained my eyes into the starred
shadows of the jasmine thicket half expecting to see a white veil
creeping like a snake.

What was that? I had no time to find fancy or fact--my eyes had caught
sight of something unmistakable at the foot of the marble pedestal.

It was young Bertram.

He was lying as if asleep, his cheek caressing the battered bronze ball
that he had encircled with his arms.

His face turned up to the stars showed nothing but content.


                          *   *   *   *   *


He must have stayed on after the others had gone, probably to think
things out--the legend of appeal must have drawn him back to the very
spot where the snake charmer's basket had been upset--like it had to
me, the fragrant peace must have brought to his weariness sleep.

For the rest. Had there really been a fourth snake? Was it true that
serpents always revenged themselves for wrong charming? Or were those
two faint blood spots on the rose leaves of young Bertram's lips ....


                          *   *   *   *   *
                     "An 'E' willmakeit--plain."

Craddock's rolling baritone mingled with a shriek of steam welcoming a
swift speck on the horizon.

With a roar and a rush it was on us, past us.

"Ef that 'ymn 'ad bin wrote these times, sir," remarked Craddock
blandly, as he turned on steam, "the h'author might 'ave put in a
H'engin. There ain't anythin' more mysterious in its goin's on--except
per'aps wimmen. I'd ruther trust for grace to the mercy o' the Lord
than to them any day."




                              SALT DUTY


                                  I

"Lo! nigh on fifty years have passed since that dark night; just such a
night as this, O! Children-of-the-Master! and yet remembering the
sudden yell of death which rose upon the still air--just such an air as
this, hot and still.... Nay! fear not, Children-of-the-Master! since I,
Imân (the faithful one so named and natured), watch, as I watched
then ... and yet, I say, the hair upon my head which then grew thick and
now is bald, the down upon my skin which then was bloom and now is
stubble, starts up even as I started to my feet at that dread cry, and
catching Sonny-_baba_ in my arms fled to the safer shadows of the
garden. And the child slept...."

The voice, declamatory yet monotonous, paused as if the speaker
listened.

"It is always so with the Master-Children," it went on, tentatively,
"they sleep...."

The second and longer pause which ensued allowed soft breathings to be
heard from the darkness, even, unmistakable, and when the voice
continued something of the vainglorious tone of the _raconteur_ had
been replaced by a note of resignation.

"And wherefore not, my friends, seeing that as masters they know no
fear?"

Wherefore, indeed?

Imân Khân, whilom major-domo to many sahibs of high degree, now in his
old age factotum to the Eurasian widow and children of a conservancy
overseer, asked himself the question boldly. Yet the heart which beat
beneath the coarse white muslin coatee starched to crackle-point in the
effort to conceal the poorness of its quality, felt a vague
dissatisfaction.

In God's truth the memory of the great Mutiny still sent his old blood
shivering through his veins, and some of the tribe of black-and-tan
boys who slept around him in the darkness were surely now old enough to
thrill, helplessly responsive, to the triumphal threnody of their race?

Yet it was not so. The tale, on the contrary, was a sure
sleep-compeller; indeed, he was never able to reach his own particular
contribution to the sum total of heroism before sleep came--except in
his own dreams! _There_ he remembered, as he remembered so many things.
How to decorate a ham, for instance--though it was an abomination to
the Lord!--how to ice champagne--though that also was damnable!--when
to say "Not at home," or dismiss a guest by announcing the carriage--
though these were foreign to him, soul and body.

Out there, beyond the skimp verandah, amid the native cots set in the
dusky darkness in hopes of a breath of fresher air, old Imân's
imagination ran riot in etiquette.

And yet the faint white glimmer of the Grand Trunk Road which showed
beyond the cots was not straighter, more unswerving than the
_khânsâman's_ creed as to the correct card to play in each and every
circumstance of domestic life.

His present mistress, a worthy soul of the most doubtful Portuguese
descent, knew this to her cost. It was a relief, in fact, for her to
get away at times from his determination, for instance, to have what he
called "sikkens" for dinner. But then she did not divide her world into
the sheep who always had a savoury second course in their menu, and the
goats who did not. To him it was the crux of social position.

So, an opportunity of escape having arisen in the mortal illness of a
distant relation, she had gone off for a weeks holiday full of tears
and determination, while away, to eat as much sweet stuff as she chose,
leaving Imân Khân in charge of the quaint little bastion of the
half-ruined caravanserai in which she was allowed free quarters in
addition to her pension.

He was relieved also. He had, in truth, a profound contempt for her;
but as this was palpably the wrong game, he covered his disapproval
with an inflexible respect which allowed no deviation from duty on
either side. Yet it was a hard task to keep the household straight.
Sometimes even Imân's solid belief in custom as all-sufficing wavered,
and he half regretted having refused the offers of easier services made
him by rich natives anxious to ape the manner of the alien. But it was
only for a moment. The claims of the white blood he had served all his
life, as his forbears had before him, were paramount, and whatever his
faults, the late _E-stink Sahib_, conservancy overseer, had been
white--or nearly so! Did not his name prove it? Had not _Warm E-stink
Sahib_ (Warren Hastings) left a reputation behind him in India for all
time? Yea! he had been a real master. The name was without equal in the
land--save, perhaps, that which came from the great conqueror,
_Jullunder_ (Alexander).

Undoubtedly, _E-stink Sahib_ had been white; so it was a pity the
children took so much after their mother; more and more so, indeed,
since the baby girl born after her father's death was the darkest of
the batch. It was as if the white blood had run out in consequence of
the constant calls upon it. For Elflida Norma, the eldest girl--they
all had fine names except the black baby, whom that incompetent widow
had called Lily--was....

Ah! what was not Elflida Norma? The old man, drowsing in the darkness
after a hard day of decorum, wandered off still more dreamily at the
thought of his darling. _She_ did not sleep out on the edge of the high
road. Her sixteen years demanded other things. Ah! so many things. Yet
the Incompetent one could perceive no difference between the claims of
the real Miss-_Sahiba_--that is, _E-stink Sahib's_ own daughter by a
previous wife--and those of the girl-brat she herself had brought to
him by a previous husband, and whom she had cheerfully married off to a
black man with a sahib's hat! For this was Imân Khân's contemptuous
classification of Xavier Castello, one of those unnecessarily dark
Eurasians who even in the middle of the night are never to be seen
without the huge pith hats, which they wear, apparently, as an effort
at race distinction.

The Incompetent one was quite capable of carrying through a similar
marriage for the Miss-_Sahiba_. Horrible thought to Imân; all the more
horrible because he was powerless to provide a proper husband. He could
insist on savouries for dinner; he could say "the door is shut" to
undesirable young men; he could go so far in weddings as to provide a
_suffer_ (supper) and a wedding cake (here his wrinkles set into a
smile), but only God could produce the husband, especially here in this
mere black-man's town where sahibs lived not. Where sahibs did not even
seek a meal or a night's rest in these evil days when they were whisked
hither and thither by rail trains instead of going decently by road.

Through the darkness his dim eyes sought the opposite bastion of the
serai. In the olden days any moment might have brought someone....

But those days were past. It would need a miracle now to bring a sahib
out of a post carriage to claim accommodation there. Yea! a real
heaven-sent car must come.

Still, God was powerful. If he chose to send one, there might be a real
wedding--such a wedding as--there had been--when--he....

So, tired out, Imân was once more in his dreams decorating hams, icing
champagne, and giving himself away in the intricacies of sugar-piping.

When he woke, it was with a sense that he had somehow neglected his
duty. But no! In the hot dry darkness there was silence and sleep. Even
Lily-_baba_ had her due share of Horatio Menelaus' bed. He rose, and
crept with noiseless bare feet to peep in through the screens of
Elflida Norma's tiny scrap of a room that was tacked on to the one
decent-sized circular apartment in the bastion, like a barnacle to a
limpet. One glance, even by the dim light of the cotton wick set in a
scum of oil floating on a tumbler of water, showed him that she was no
longer where an hour or two before he had left her safe.

Without a pause he crept on across the room and looked through the door
at its opposite end, which gave on the arcaded square of the serai.

All was still. Here and there among the ruined arches a twinkling light
told of some wayfarer late come, and from the shadows a mixed bubbling
of hookahs and camels could be heard drowsily.

She was not there, however, as he had found her sometimes, listening to
a bard or wandering juggler; for she was not as the others, tame as
cows, but rather as the birds, wild and flighty. So he passed on, out
through the massive doorway, built by dead kings, and stood once more
on the white gleam of the road, listening. From far down it, nearer the
town, came the unmelodious hee-haw of a concertina played regardless of
its keys.

"Hee, hee, haw! Haw, hee, hee!"

His old ear knew the rhythm. That was the dance in which the
sahib-logue kicked and stamped and laughed. This was Julia Castello's
doing. There was a "nautch" among the black people with the sahib's
hats, and the Miss-_Sahiba_--his Miss-_Sahiba_--had been lured to it!

Once more, without a pause, the instinct as to the right thing to do
coming to him with certainty, he turned aside to his cook-room, and,
lighting a hurricane lantern, began to rummage in a battered tin box,
which, bespattered still with such labels as "Wanted on the Voyage,"
proclaimed itself a perquisite from some past services.

So, ten minutes afterwards, a starched simulacrum of what had once been
a Chief Commissioner's butler (even to a tarnished silver badge in the
orthodox headgear shaped like a big pith quoit) appeared in the
verandah of Mrs. Castello's house, and, pointing with dignity to the
glimmer of a hurricane lantern in the dusty darkness by the gate, said,
as he produced a moth-eaten cashmere opera-cloak trimmed with moulting
swansdown:

"As per previous order, the Miss-Sahiba's ayah hath appeared for her
mistress, with this slave as escort."

Elflida Norma, a dancing incarnation of pure mischief, looked round
angrily on the burst of noisy laughter which followed, and the pausing
stamp of her foot was not warranted by the polka.

"Why you laugh?" she cried, passionately. "He is my servant--he belongs
to our place."

Then, turning to the deferential figure, her tone changed, and she drew
herself up to the full of her small height.

"Nikul jao!" she said, superbly; which, being interpreted, is the
opprobrious form of "get you gone."

The old man's instinct had told him aright. There, amid that company,
the girl in the white muslin she had surreptitiously pinned into the
semblance of a ball dress, her big blue eyes matching the tight string
of big blue beads about her slender throat, showed herself apart
absolutely, despite her dark hair and 'almost sallow complexion.

"The Huzoor has forgotten the time," said Imân, imperturbably;
"it is just twelve o'clock, and _Sin-an-hella_ dances of this
description"--here he looked round at the squalid preparations for
supper with superlative scorn--"always close at midnight."

There was something so almost appalling in the answering certainty of
his tone regarding Cinderellas, that even Mrs. Castello hesitated,
looking round helplessly at her guests.

"In addition," added the old man, following up the impression,
"is not the night Saturday? and even in the great _Lat-Sahib's_ house,
where I have served, was there no nautch on Saturdays--excepting
_Sin-an-hellas_."

He yielded the last point graciously, but the concession was even more
confounding to Mrs. Castello than his previous claim. Besides, old
Imân's darkling allusion to service with a Governor-General was a
well-known danger-signal to the whole Hastings family, including
Elflida Norma, who now hesitated palpably.

"I t'ought you more wise," insinuated her partner, who had actually
laid aside his hat for the polka, "than to have such a worn-out poor
fellow to your place. Pay no heed to him, Miss 'Astin', and polk again
once more."

Elflida drew herself away from his encircling arm haughtily.

"No, thanks," she drawled, her small head, with its short curls in air.
"I am tired of polking--and he is a more better servant than your
people have in your place, anyhow."

"But Elfie!" protested Mrs. Castello.

The girl interrupted her step-sister with an odd expression in her big
blue eyes.

"It will be Sunday, as he says, Julia; besides, the princess always
goes home first from a Cinderella, you know, because----"

"Because why?" inquired Mrs. Castello, fretfully; "that will be some
bob-dash from the silly books she adores so much, Mr. Rosario."

Elflida stood for a moment smiling sweetly, as it were appraising all
things she saw, from the greasy tablecloth on the supper table to old
Imân's starched purity; from the cocoanut oil on the head of one
admirer, to the tarnished silver sign of service on the head of the
other.

"Because she was a princess, of course," she replied, demurely; and
straightway stooped her white shoulders for the yoke of cashmere and
swansdown with a dignity which froze even Mr. Rosario's remonstrance.

"Thank you," she said, loftily in the verandah, when he suggested
escort; "but my ayah and my bearer are sufficient. Good-night."

So down the pathway, inches deep in dust, she walked sedately towards
the glimmer of the lantern by the gate, followed deferentially by Imân.
But only so far; for once within the spider's web halo round the barred
light, she sprang forward with a laugh. The next instant all was dark.
Cimmerian darkness indeed to the old man as he struggled with the
moulting swansdown and moth-eaten cashmere she had flung over his head.

"Miss-_Sahiba!_ Miss-_baba_! _norty_, _norty_ girl!" he cried after
her, desperately, in his double capacity of escort and ayah. Then he
consoled himself with the reflection that it was but a bare quarter of
a mile to the serai along a straight deserted high road. Even a real
Miss-Sahiba might go so far alone, unhurt; so, after pausing a moment
from force of habit to re-light the lantern, he ambled after his charge
as fast as his old legs could carry him. Suddenly he heard a noise such
as he had never heard before close behind him. A horrid, panting noise,
and then something between a bellow and a whistle. He turned, saw a red
eye glaring at him, and the next instant the infernal monster darted
past him, whirring, snorting. In pursuit, of course, of Elflida Norma!

What tyranny was here! What defiance of custom! Saw anyone ever the
like?--on a decent metalled road--and only the ayah--God forgive him
the lie!--wanting to make all things in order?

These confused, helpless thoughts ran swifter in the old man's mind
that his legs carried his body, as he followed in pursuit of the
monster. The lantern, swinging wildly, hindered such light as there
might have been without it, but he knew the Thing was ahead of him, by
the truly infernal smell it left behind it.

And then from the darkness ahead came a curiously familiar cry, "Hut,
hut! (get out of the way). Oh, damn!"

A crash followed; then silence. A few seconds afterwards he was gazing,
helplessly bewildered, at two figures who were looking at each other
wrathfully across the white streak of road.

One he knew. It was Elflida Norma, her impromptu ball dress
metamorphosed by her race into loose white draperies out of which the
small dark head and slim throat, with its circlet of big blue beads,
rose as from clouds. The other, unknown, was that of a tall, fair young
man.

"If you had only stood still," the latter was saying angrily, "I could
have managed, but you dodged about like--like----" His eyes had taken
her in by this time, and he paused in his simile. But hers had wandered
to the monster prone in the dust; and she stepped closer to it
curiously.

"I suppose it is named a motor bicycle," she said, coolly. "I have not
seen one in our place before, only in picture books. I am glad."

There were no regrets or apologies. And even Imân Khân, when he
recovered his breath, made no inquiries as to whether the young man had
hurt himself in getting out of the Miss-Sahiba's way He simply looked
at the wheels of the bicycle and then at its stalwart young rider.

God had been kind and sent a husband in a miraculous car!


                                  II

Imân Khân sate in the early dawn, putting such polish as never before
was put on a pair of rather large size Oxford shoes. So far all had
gone well. His own vast experience, aided by the stranger's complete
ignorance of Indian ways, had sufficed for much; and Alexander
Alexander Sahib (all the twelve Imâns be praised for such a name!) was
now comfortably asleep in the bastion opposite the widow's quarters,
under the impression that the hastily produced whisky and soda, with a
"sand beef" (sandwich) in case hunger had come on the road, the simple
but clean bedding, and briefly, all the luxuries of a night's sleep
after a somewhat severe shaking, were due to the commercial instincts
of a good old chap in charge of the usual rest-house: that being
exactly what Imân had desired as a beginning.

The sequel required thought, and, as he polished, his brain was full of
plans for the immediate future. One thing was certain, however, quite
certain. The husband God had sent in a car must not be allowed to ride
away on it before seeing more of the Miss-_Sahiba_. Arrangements must
be made, as they always had to be made in the best families. Generally
it began with a tennis party--but this, of course, was out of the
question--and perhaps the accident on the road might be taken as
an equivalent for that introduction. Then there were dances, and
"fools-food" (picnics). The one might be considered as taken also, the
others were out of season in the heats of May. There remained drives
and dinners. Both possible, but both required time; therefore time must
be had. The _chota-sahib_ must not ride away after breakfast, as he had
settled on doing, should he and the monster be found fit for the road.

Now the _chota-sahib_ seemed none the worse for his fall, as Imân, in
his capacity of valet, had had opportunities of judging. The inference,
therefore, was obvious. It must be the monster who was incapable.

Imân gave a finishing glisten to the shoes and placed them decorously
side by side, ready to be taken in when the appointed hour came for
shaving water. Then he went over and looked at the motor bicycle, which
was accommodated in the verandah. It did not pant or smell now as if it
were alive, but for all that it looked horribly healthy and strong. It
was evidently not a thing to be broken inadvertently by a casual push.
Then a thought struck him, and he ambled off to the old blacksmith, who
still lived in the serai arcade and boasted of his past trade of
mending springs, shoeing horses, and selling to travellers his own
manufactures in the way of wonderful soft iron pocket-knives with
endless blades and corkscrews warranted to draw themselves instead of
the corks!

"Ari Bhai," said Imân mildly to this worthy, "thou art a prince of
workmen, truly; but come and see something beyond thy art in iron.
Bâpri bâp! I warrant thou couldst not even guess at its inner parts."

Could he not? Tezoo, the smith, thought otherwise, and being clever as
well as voluble, hit with fair correctness on pivots, cog-wheels, and
such-like inevitables of all machinery, the result of the interview
being that Imân, armed with his kitchen chopper and a bundle of
skewers, had a subsequent _tête-à-tête_ with the monster, in which the
latter came off second best; so that when its owner, fortified by a
most magnificent breakfast (served in the verandah by reason of the
central room of that bastion having an absolutely unsafe roof), went to
overhaul his metal steed, he was fairly surprised.

"It is a verra remarkable occurrence," he said softly to himself as his
deft hands busied themselves with nuts and screws (for he was a Scotch
engineer on his way to take up an appointment as superintendent in a
canal workshop), "most remarkable. And would be a fine example to the
old ministers thesis that accident is not chance. There's just a method
in it that is absolutely uncanny."

In short, even with the smithy on the premises, of which the good old
chap in charge spoke consolingly, it was clear he could not start
before evening, if then. Not that it mattered so much, since he had
plenty of time in which to join his billet.

Thus, as he smoked his pipe, the question came at last for which the
old matchmaker had been longing.

"And who would the young lady be who smashed me up last night?"

In his reply Imân dragged in _Warm E-stink Sahib Bahadur_ and a vast
amount of extraneous matter out of his own past experiences. Regarding
the present, however, he was distinctly selective without being
actually untruthful. The late _E-stink Sahib's_ widow and children, for
instance, being also at rest in the serai, were equally under his
charge. And this being so, since there was but one public room in which
dinner could possibly be served as it should be served--here Imân made
a digression regarding the rights of the sahib-logue at large and
_E-stink Sahib's_ family in particular--it was possible that the Huzoor
might meet his fellow-lodgers and the Miss-_Sahiba_ again.

In fact, he--Imân--would find it more convenient if the meal were eaten
together and at the same time, and the mem--her absence being one of
the eliminated truths--would, he knew, fall in with any suggestion of
his; which statement again was absolutely true.

Alec Alexander, lost in the intricacies of a piston-rod, acquiesced
mechanically, though in truth the likelihood of seeing such a
remarkably pretty face again was not without its usual unconscious
charm to a young man.

This charm, however, became conscious half an hour afterwards, when
hard at work in the smithy, his coat off, his sleeves rolled up,
showing milk-white arms above his tanned wrists, he looked up from the
bit of glowing iron on the anvil and saw a large pair of blue eyes and
a large string of blue beads about an almost childish throat.

It struck him that both were as blue as the sky inarching the wide
inarched square of the old serai. It struck him also that the eyes,
anyhow, had more in common with the sky than with the house made with
hands in which he stood, even though dead kings had built it. Yes! the
whole figure did not belong somehow to its environment; to the litter
of wasted forage, the ashes of dead fires, to the desertion and neglect
of a place which, having served its purpose of a night's lodging, has
been left behind on the road. It seemed worth more than that.

"I gave you a nice toss, didn't I?" said Elflida Norma, breaking in on
his quasi-sentimental thought with a certain complacency. "If you had
got out of my way it would have been more better."

"You mean if you hadn't got in mine," he replied, grimly. "But don't
let us quarrel about that now. The mischief's done so far as I am
concerned."

The blue eyes narrowed in eager interest.

"Have you broken things inside, too?" she asked, sympathy absent, pure
curiosity present in her tone.

"No! I didn't," he said, shortly. "I'm not of the kind that breaks
easily."

She considered him calmly from head to foot. "No-o-o," she admitted,
sparingly. "I suppose not--but your arms look veree brittle, like
china--I suppose that is from being so--being so chicken-white."

"Perhaps," he said, still more shortly, and was relieved when Imân
(having from the cook-room, where he was feverishly feathering fowls in
preparation for the night's feast, detected Elflida's flagrant breach
of etiquette in having anything whatever to do with a coatless sahib)
hurried across to beguile his charge back to the paths of propriety by
reporting that Lily-_baba_ (to whom the girl was devoted) evinced a
determination to eat melons with her brothers, which he, Imân, was far
too busy to frustrate.

"You need not make such pother about big dinner to-night," she said,
viciously, when, with the absolutely accommodating Lily in her arms,
she stood watching the far less interesting process of pounding
forcemeat on a curry stone; "for I heard him tell the smith that he
would go this evening if--well, if somebody kept his temper in boiling
oil. Such a queer idea--as if anybody could!"

Old Imân's hands fell for an instant from the _munâdu_ (Maintenon)
cutlets he was preparing, for he understood the frail foundation on
which his chance of manufacturing a husband stood. Jullunder-sahib must
be making a spring, and if the oil in which it had to be
boiled---- But no! As cook, he knew something of the properties of hot
fat, and felt convinced that the spring would never be fried in time.

So all that long hot day he toiled and slaved in company with an
anatomy of a man whom he had unearthed from the city. A man who had
also in his youth served the white blood, but had never risen beyond
the scullery. A man who called him "Great Artificer," and fanned him
and the charcoal fire indiscriminately according to their needs.

And all that long hot day on the other side of the arcaded square work
went on also, so that the clang of metal on anvil or cook-room fire
rose in antagonism on the dusty sunshine which slept between them.
Dinner or no dinner? Spring or no spring? And the circling dark shadows
of the kites above in the blue sky were almost the only other signs of
life, for Elflida Norma had found sleep the easiest way of keeping
Lily-_baba_ from the melons, and the boys slept as they slept always.

But as the sun set Imân knew that fate had decided in favour of the
dinner, for Jullunder-sahib came over from the smithy with empty hands,
and found hot water in his room, and the change of white raiment he
carried in his knapsack laid out decorously on the bed.

He took the hint and dressed for dinner, even to the buttonhole of
jasmine which he found beside his hair-brush.

Elflida Norma, under similar supervision, dressed also. In fact,
everything was dressed, including the flat tin lids of the saucepans
which Imân had impressed into doing duty as side-dishes. Surrounded by
castellated walls of rice paste, supporting cannon balls of alternate
spinach and cochinealed potatoes, they really looked very fine. So did
Imân himself, starched to inconceivable stiffness of deportment. So
even did the anatomy, who, promoted for once to the dining-room,
grinned at the young man and the girl, at the Great Artificer and all
his works, with his usual indiscrimination.

And, in truth, each and all deserved grins. Yet Elflida Norma looked at
Alec Alexander, he at her, and both at the dinner table set out
marvellously with great trails of the common pumpkin vine looped with
the cheap silver tinsel every Indian bazaar provides, and felt a sudden
shyness of themselves, of each other, and the unwonted snowiness and
glitter.

"Cler or wite?" said Imân, his old hands in difficulties with two soup
plates. There was a dead silence.

"He means soup," faltered Elflida Norma desperately, wishing herself
with the boys who were being regaled with curry and rice in her room,
and thereinafter became dumb until the next course, when a sense of
duty made her supplement Imân's "fish-bar'l" with the explanation that
it was not really fish, which was not procurable, but another form of
fowl.

So, in fact, were the side dishes which followed, and in which Imân had
so far surpassed his usual self that Elflida was perforce as helpless
as her companion for all save eating them solidly in due order. The old
man, however, was too much absorbed in the due handling of "bredsarse"
with the fowl, which was at last allowed to appear under the title of
"roschikken," too much discomforted by the subsidence of his favourite
"sikken," a cheese _soufflée_, to notice silence, or the lack of it,
until, just as--the worst strain over--he was perfunctorily apologising
for the impossibility of "Hice-puddeen," a fateful cry came from the
next room and Elflida started to her feet.

"It's Lily," she began; but Imân frowned her into her seat again, and
turned to the anatomy superbly. "Go!" he said with dignity, "and bid
the ayah see to Lily-_baba_."

The result, however, was unsatisfactory, and a certain obstinacy grew
to Elflida's small face, which finally blossomed into open rebellion
and a burst of confidence.

"You see," she said, those blue eyes of hers almost blinking as she
narrowed them with earnestness, "she smells guavas, and they are more
her hobby than melons even."

The young man smiled.

"Who's Lily?" he asked; "your sister, I suppose."

"My half-sister," she replied, solemnly. "But she will cry on, you see,
if she is not let to come to my place."

"Then let her come--why not?"

"It is an evil custom," began Imân, as the order was given. He knew no
graver blame than that even for a whole Decalogue in ruins; but Elflida
Norma stamped her foot as she had stamped it in the polka, so he had to
give in and thus avoid worse exposures.

And, after all, the introduction of the dimpled brown child in a little
white night-shift, who leant shyly against Elflida's blue beads, seemed
to help the conversation. So much so that after coffee and cigarettes
had been served in the verandah, old Imân felt as if success must crown
his efforts--if only there were time! But how could there be time when
the possible husband had arranged, since the motor bicycle refused to
be mended with the appliances at his disposal, to have it conveyed by
country cart overnight to the nearest railway station, five miles off,
whither he must tramp it, he supposed? next morning, to catch the mail
train.

It was when, pleasantly, yet still carelessly, Alec Alexander was
saying good-bye to the blue eyes and the blue beads, with the brown
baby cuddled up comfortably in the girl's slender arms, that Imân, with
a sinking heart, played his last card by saying that there was no need
for the Huzoor to tramp. The Miss-_Sahiba_ and Lily-_baba_ invariably
took a carriage airing before breakfast, and could quite easily drop
the Huzoor at the railway station.

"Yes! I could drop you quite easily at that place. It would be more
better than the walk," assented Elflida Norma, with a Sphinx-like
smile. Her heart was beating faster than usual. She was beginning
to be amused with the tinsel glitter and the general pretence.
It was like playing a game. Still she slept soundly; and so
did the young engineer, and Lily-_baba_, and the boys gorged with
as-a-rule-prohibited native dainties. Even the smith slept, and the
anatomy had already reverted to reality, his transient dignity
vanishing into thin air. So that in that wide ruined serai, built by
dead kings, all were at rest save the Great Artificer, Imân, who sate
among the ruins of his dinner, satisfied, yet still conscious of
failure. Something was lacking, which once more only God could
create--only a miraculous car could bring.

In truth, if any vehicle might from outward appearance claim miraculous
powers, it was the extraordinary sort of four-wheeled dogcart which, in
the cool morning air, appeared as Imân's last card. He had, indeed, not
wandered from the truth in telling Alec Alexander that carriages were
not to be hired in that sahib-forsaken spot, and it had been only with
extreme difficulty that he had raised these four wheels of varying
colours and a body painted with festoons of grapes, all tied together
with ropes.

Still, it held the party. Imân, with Lily-_baba_ in his arms, on the
box by the driver, Elflida and the young engineer disposed on the back
seat. The horse, it is true, showed signs of never having been in
harness before, but this was not so evident to those behind, and Imân
held tight and set his teeth, knowing that success has sometimes to be
bought dearly.

Still, it was with no small measure of relief when they were close on
their destination, and the beast settled down to the two hundred yards
of collar work leading up to the small station level with the high
embankment of the permanent way, that he turned round to peep at
progress on the back seat.

Had anything happened? His heart sank at the cool, collected air with
which the possible husband took his ticket; but it rose again, when,
after saying good-bye to Lily-_baba_ and tipping the coachman, the
young man went off to the platform with Elflida, as if it were a matter
of course she should see him off. In truth, that is exactly what he did
feel concerning this distinctly pretty and rather jolly little girl
with a bad temper.

And Elflida? Her world seemed to have had a fresh start in growth, it
held greater possibilities than before, that was all.

So everything had been in vain, even Imân's sense of duty towards the
white blood he had served so long.

"Good-bye!" He could not hear the words, but he saw the young hands
meet to unclasp again, as with a whistle the mail train rushed out from
behind a dense mango clump, and the Westinghouse brakes brought a
sudden grinding rattle to the quiet morning air.

"All was over!" thought Imân sadly, as still sitting on the box with
Lily-_baba_, he watched. Surely it had not been his fault. He had done
all--only the cheese _soufflée_ had failed, and that happened sometimes
even in the house of Lât-Sahibs. Yet it was over.

It was, indeed. Almost including the miraculous car, as deprived of its
driver, who was spending part of his tip in the sweet stall, the horse,
frightened at the train, reared, bounded forward, and then, finding its
progress barred in front by a railing, swerved on its track, and came
past the station again, heading for that downward incline with the
steep banks falling away on either side.

Elflida grasped the position first, and with a cry of "Lily! Lily!" was
at the horse's head as it passed. The possible husband was not far
behind--just far enough to make the off rein as convenient to his
pursuing feet as the near one, to which she clung, half dragged,
helpless, half in wild determination to keep pace with the terrified
beast.

"Let go!" he shouted. "He'll get you down, and then--let go, I say!"

She did not answer. In truth, she had no breath for words. And,
besides, her mind was not clear enough to grasp his order, though it
grasped something else--namely, that relief from her dead weight on one
side must bring a swerve to the other. And that must not be till the
embankment was passed, or the man holding to the off rein must go
under.

"Let go!" he shouted, again and again, as he, in his turn, grasped her
purpose; but he might as well have shouted to the dead.


                          *   *   *   *   *


"I believe--I hope--she has fainted," said Alec Alexander, with a catch
in his voice not all due to breathlessness, as, the runaway safe held
by other captors, he stooped over the girl who lay in the dust, her
hands still clenched over a broken rein. Then he lifted her tenderly
and carried her back to the station whence the mail train, careless of
such trivialities as miraculous cart, had departed.

And if on his way he kissed the closed blue eyes and the blue beads
round the childish throat, who shall blame him?


                          *   *   *   *   *


Anyhow, the hot dry nights of May were not over before old Imân's voice
rose once more in declamation over the unforgettable story of the white
blood.

But this time sleep did not come to the black-and-tan tribe gathered in
the light of the floating oil wick. For the boys were watching
something they had never seen before--the icing of a wedding cake.

And so the long-deferred personal climax came at last.

"The trouble being over, the masters were masters again, and I took
Sonny-_baba_ back to his people. And wherefore not? Seeing I had eaten
of their salt all my life and they of mine. Yea! even unto wedding
cakes. Look, my sons! That is done, and I, Imân, the faithful one by
name and nature made it."


                          *   *   *   *   *


There was but one flaw in the old man's content on the great day; for
he had managed to get a ham cheap for the "suffer," and Mrs. Hastings,
only too glad of greater freedom in the future, had consented to his
turning his attention to the education of the young couple and
Lily-_baba_, who was to live with them. That flaw was a slight
irregularity in what he was pleased to call a "too-liver-ot" on the
said cake. Not that it really mattered. The true lover's knot itself
was there, though the hands which fashioned it were not so young and
steady as they had been when they caught up Sonny-_baba_ and carried
him to the safe shadows.

Yet, old as they were, those hands had forgotten no duty. _E-stink
Sahib's_ widow, absorbed with a friend in the recipe of a mango pickle
she meant to make on the morrow--a pickle full of forbidden turmeric
and mustard oil--had to be reminded of her _rôle_ as bride's mother
over and over again, but it was Imân who hung a horseshoe for luck on
the miraculous car--drawn this time by an old stager--Imân, who was
ready with rice, Imân, who finally ran after the departing lovers to
fling the old white shoe, in which Elflida had danced the hee-haw
polka, into their laps as they sate on the back seat, and then,
overbalancing himself in the final effort, to tumble into the dust,
where he remained blissfully uncertain as to praise or blame, murmuring
blandly, "What a custom is here!"




                    THE WISDOM OF OUR LORD GANESH

"The wisdom of Sri Ganêsh--the wisdom of our Lord Ganêsh."[1]


Through and through my fever-drugged brain the words came, compelling,
insistent; forcing me away from reality, forcing me back into the past.
Yet I knew perfectly where I was; I remembered distinctly that having
felt unusually tired after rather a hot day's march I had pitched the
little _tente d'abri_--which was my home during a sketching tour in
Wales--rather closer to the main road than I generally did, and had
thereinafter promptly succumbed to an unmistakable go of fever and
ague, a half-forgotten legacy left behind by many years of Indian life.

Yes, I could remember distinctly the bramble-and-nut-hidden quarry
hole, with its little inner sward of sweet sheep-bitten grass where I
had pitched the tent. I knew that if I were to call, someone of the
rumbling cart wheels, which came at intervals along the road, might
stop and seek for the caller; but I lay still. I was hard-happed round
and round with the curious content which comes as the chills and the
aches are passing into the fire flood of fever that thrills the
finger-tips and sets the brain fizzling like champagne.


"The wisdom of Sri Ganêsh--the wisdom of our Lord Ganêsh."


Why on earth should that haunt me here in Wales? on a piece, no doubt,
of Nat Gwynne's property.

Nat Gwynne! Then I knew. It was because I had seen him in the distance
that day, driving a pair of grey ponies, tandem, with a pretty young
girl beside his coarse, heavy, good looks; heavier than they had been,
though, heaven knows! refinement had never stood much in his way. And
they were to be married to-morrow! Married to Gwynne of Garthgwynne!
Couldn't anyone tell her what she was doing? Couldn't anyone save her,
as the wisdom of Sri Ganêsh had saved that other one?...

And then in a second I was gone. I was under the brassy blue
sky of India, and from the twisted tufts of marsh-grasses by the
elephant's feet came a native beater's lament--"As God sees me it is
invisible--what a tyranny is here."

"Bid Ganêsh seek," said Nat Gwynne's voice, imperatively from the
howdah from which we were both shooting. He was in a Lancer regiment
cantooned in the native State where for many years I had been
consulting engineer.

The _mahout_, seated on the big brute's neck, turned calmly. "It is
against the orders that Sri Ganêsh, King of Elephants and Lord of
Wisdom, should touch carrion even of the Huzoor's."

I looked at my old friend Mahadeo with astonishment. He and I had been
out on Ganêsh, the Rajah's finest elephant, scores of times, and again
and again the cunning old rogue's inquisitive trunk had nosed out and
up a partridge or snipe which the coolies had failed to find.

"He hath a scent like a bed of roses," old Mahadeo would say proudly,
"and as for wisdom! Doth he not hold the Huzoor even as his own
_mahout?_"

Which delicate piece of flattery was true, for old Ganêsh, pad elephant
to the bankrupt young scoundrel of a Rajah, had taken a fancy to me, as
elephants do take fancies.

So, seeing at a glance that something lay beneath the surface of the
bitter hatred in the dark face, and the wild, wicked rage of the white
one, I said, quickly. "Seek! my brother!"

Ganêsh swayed forward, his trunk curling like a snake, his wicked
little eyes alert, a faint _frou-frou_ of a blowing sound seeming to
quiver the grasses; and there, grasped softly in the prehensile end was
a dead jack snipe! As he put it deferentially and politely into my
outstretched hand I seemed to catch a contemptuous flicker in his eye,
as who would say, "What an amount of fuss about such a very little
piece of pork," as the Jew said when a thunderstorm found him eating
sausage.

But that it was _not_ a little piece of pork between those two, still
glaring at each other, was evident.

Mahadeo's usually gentle face had taken on a stony stare that held in
it something of limitless power; while Nat Gwynne's anger was almost
obscured by sheer disgust at having to keep his hands off another man's
servant.

"By God!" he cried. "It's lucky for you, you pig, that I'm not your
master--but--but I'll try to be--I'll buy this big brute when they sell
the bankrupt State up next month, and I'll buy you, curse you, and
I'll ..."

"Do hold your tongue, Gwynne," I said to him in a low voice, for his
temper was notorious, and once he lost control over himself he would
often behave like a madman. As, indeed, he had every right to be, since
the record of the Gwynnes of Garthgwynne was a black one.

Mahadeo, however, supplied the return to calm.

"The Huzoor is _mast_," he said to me, rapidly in low contemptuous
Hindustani, turning the while to sit, immovable as ever, a mere head
and trunk of a man, all else being hidden by the elephant's great
shields of ears. "He is as the beasts that perish. And Ganêsh, too,
nears his time of power--" he pointed to the great head he bestrode
where, oozing apparently from a slight hollow in the skin a few drops
of ichor showed, half hardened into amber, "so let those who would harm
him--or _his friends_ beware!"

But there was nothing of which to be beware thereinafter, for all
became peace. How hot the sun was! And the guns, too! Almost too hot to
hold. But how cool it was in the camp down in a mango-grove beside a
tank with great cane brakes stretching away into the stars under the
moonlight! And how peaceful! How one slept, and slept, and slept,
drowsed to dreamlessness by the great peace of the immovable shadows,
the greater peace of the light behind them....

Ye powers above! What was that? Even now, remembering it, all was as it
had seemed then. Shadow on light, light on shadow ... a curse, a
cry ... something young and slim fleeing, half in light, half in shadow!
Then a sudden trumpet, a rattle as of chained front feet, one little
sob....

How steadily the moonlight shone through the branches on that small
upturned face which was all Ganêsh's feet had spared.

"Who? What?" I gasped, uncomprehending, staring stupidly at Mahadeo on
his knees beside the dead girl, at Gwynne, still dressed, the buttons
on his mess jacket glittering like diamonds, his face all working with
horror and dismay. But there was no room for anything but the old man's
voice, quiet, restrained:

"She was my granddaughter, Huzoor. But a light thing. She must have
gone too near the King of Elephants, being as this slave said, near to
his time of power. What then? _It is the wisdom, of our Lord Ganêsh!
The wisdom of Sri Ganêsh!_"

The sound of his voice died away softly, and the wind carried it
further, and further, and further....

Such an odd wind! Soft, warm, with a faint perfume in it, blowing on my
hands, my face. And behind it a familiar sighing sound with the echo of
a chuckle in it....

Was it possible? I started up, my brain in a whirl. Did I, or did I not
see in the moonbeam which stole through a chink in the tent flap,
something sinuous, that curved and bent caressingly? And beyond it,
where the flap divided, was or was that not a rough image of the
Elephant Headed God of Wisdom painted in hot ochres on an elephant's
fore front? I was out of the blankets in a second, flinging back the
tent flaps with a delirious laugh. Aye! It was true! Earth and air
alike seemed blocked by a huge mass of flesh that quivered all over
with delight. Come! this was something like a fever dream! To have an
Indian Rajah's pad elephant to ride on--to go whither you would for a
fresh breeze--to cool your brain.

"_Baito_, Ganêsh! _Baito!_" I cried, giving the familiar order; but the
next instant my vaingloriousness ended in a shiver, almost of fear, as
the brute obeyed, sinking noiselessly and laying its trunk, curled
round to protect itself against injury, ready for me to mount.

Scarcely knowing what I did I caught familiarly at the big drooping
ears, I felt the trunk beneath my feet tilted gingerly to aid me, and
there I was, my head reeling madly, in the old familiar place!

But around me? Around me half Wales, bathed in broad moonlight, lay
peaceful; with, in the distance, a faint shimmer telling of the
sea--the far sea that still seemed to sound in my ears as if, indeed, I
lay upon its very shore listening to the break and burden of the waves
which came from far away--so very far away.

I think the effort must have made me relapse into unconsciousness, for
the next thing I remember is finding myself propped up by pillows in
the howdah, and hearing a familiar voice break in upon the ceaseless
fall of the waves which filled my ears.

And from the voice I gathered vaguely that it was not a dream at all.
This was indeed Ganêsh, who had been sold because of his great height
to an English showman, and this was no other than old Mahadeo, who
would not leave his charge, and had come over the black water, also,
where there was nothing good to be had save rum; rum that kept the cold
out on these chill September nights when Ganêsh had to do his marches
from town to town, since the sight of an elephant might frighten the
traffic by day. There was evidently some of that rum still in the old
man's voice as he chid Ganêsh glibly for having been restive and thrown
his unsteady _mahout_ on the road. But then had not the animal always
loved the Huzoor, even as his master? And must he not have nosed him
out as he passed, the Lord of Elephants having, as ever, a scent as of
rose gardens? Which was as well, since now the Huzoor would be able to
get a doctor-_sahib_ and medicine....

I tried to understand, but it was hard to get at anything with fever
raging in one's brain, while the rhythmic roll of the elephant's pace
as we lilted away over half Wales seemed to blend with the fall of
those waves from very far away. Once I remember asking how many couple
of snipe we had killed. After that Mahadeo furtively brought out a
bottle and gave me something fiery which seemed to do me good, though
he muttered to himself that he could but do his best--his was not the
wisdom of Sri Ganêsh.

"You--you shouldn't say that to me, you--you old fool," I
murmured, weakly. "You should say it as you said to--to--to
Gwynne-_sahib_--Gwynne-_sahib_, who is going to be married
to-morrow--don't you know? Such a pretty girl--such a very pretty
girl--such a poor, pretty girl...."

I don't know quite what I said; I am glad, indeed, not to be able to
remember, but I have a vague recollection of becoming a trifle maudlin,
and finally of pointing out, amid a cloud-like shadow of trees that lay
on the far horizon, the position--or thereabouts--of Garthgwynne,
whither the young bride was to be led the next evening.

Now, in all this, as I recount it from a blurred, fever-stricken
memory, allowance must be made for illusion. I don't know if it really
happened, I can only vouch for my belief that I actually saw and did
these things. I think now, therefore, that I fell asleep, always with
that recurring fall of distant waves in my ear, until I woke suddenly
to a loud hilarious burst of half-drunken laughter.

"Stop him! Hie! Gone away! Hello! Gwynne! Pity the bride! If you don't
go to bed there'll be no wedding day! Yoicks! Poor devil! wants to
escape the halter. Hie! You there! Best man! You're bound to bring him
up sober."

We were in the deep shadow of the famous cedar trees, and one look at
the old house beyond the lawn was enough for recognition. Yes! it was
Plas Garthgwynne, favoured of picture postcards, favoured of wild,
wicked romance and legend. It was all blazing with lights, so, despite
the waning of the moon, I could see--clustering at the door and
dispersed over the gravel sweep--the mad rush of Gwynne of
Garthgwynne's last bachelor party as it tumbled tipsily in chase of a
reeling figure that came straight towards us across the lawn to lose
itself in the opposite shadows.

And then a hard feminine voice dominated the uproar:

"Leave him alone, you fools! The night air will sober him; and if it
doesn't, there's no hurry to carry on the breed."

Something of brutal truth behind the brutal coarseness of the remark
fell like a wet blanket over the half-fuddled guests; some of them
picked themselves up moodily from the gravel, others found stability
from friends, and so they drifted in unsteadily, dominated once more by
that hard, feminine, unwomanly voice asserting that if he didn't crawl
back to burrow in a quarter-of-an-hour, she'd send the butler to look
for him.

And thereinafter came quiet; while one by one the glittering windows of
the house sank to darkness.

And yet it was not dark, after all, surely? Or was there a curious halo
of light emanating from old Mahadeo's head; a halo which distorted him
somehow, which piled his low turban into a high tiara, and made his
nose show long, so long--almost as long as the Elephant-Faced
God-of-Wisdom ... in the Indian shrines....

Ah! There he was!...

Gwynne of Garthgwynne, standing on a bit of open beyond the
shadow--behind him a grey shimmer of mere set thick with water
lilies--his legs very wide apart, his watch in his hand--it had some
electric appliance about it, and the feeble light streaming upwards
showed his face full of hard, soul-revealing lines. What a face!--the
face of a devil let loose--set free from the fetters of conventional
life.

"Two o'clock," he muttered. "Well! whats'h a--matter. Sh'upposin' am
drunk she'll have to put up--Gwynne Garthgwynne, d--mn her--my
wife--mother of Gwynne's-Garth ..."

"Forward, Sri Ganêsh!" The order came soft but swift, and we were out
of the shadows. What was it out of the shadows, also--out of the Dim
Shadows which shroud Life in the Beginning and the End, which caught me
irresistibly, making me say sharply as one who has waited long, "Come
along, Gwynne! do--there's a good fellow."

For an instant surprise seemed to struggle with satisfaction in his
drink-sodden brain. The tall, heavy figure swayed, lurched. I could see
its every detail, the very buttons on the mess jacket--worn doubtless
out of bravado this last evening of bachelorhood--shone, as they had
done that night years ago amid the shadow and shine of the mango-tôpe;
for a radiance seemed to have sprung from earth and sky in which
nothing could be hidden.

Then suddenly came his old reckless, half-insane burst of laughter.
"Come," he echoed, drunkenly, "Why--why--shno't? Whatsh' larks--chursh,
fl'rs joll'--lit'--bride--no bridegroom!--joll'--good'--larks'h, eh!
Off to Phildelp'ia in the mornin'--see th'other one--joll'--lit' one.
_Bait_, you pig, Ganêsh! _Bait!_"

It all passed like a flash of lightning. The elephant was down and up
again, and the last thing I remember was hearing Gwynne of
Garthgwynne's drunken voice say, "Hello! old Mahadeo, eh! Well! go it,
ol' man. Givs'h some of--wish-dom--Shri Ganêsh--eh--what?"

When I roused again it was dawn; pale primrose dawn over a cloudless
sea.

It was the strange wind that roused me, the soft, warm wind that passed
over my face and sought something else--and found it. Soft as a snake
the elephant's trunk found the drunken man's neck as he lay asleep,
half hanging out of the cushioned howdah, and closed on it. The sight
drove the blur from my mind, and in an instant I saw all things
clearly.

We were on the very edge of a high cliff. Below us lay the scarce
dawn-lit waters of the calm sea. But between me and that tender distant
sky, what form was this with triple crown and wise stern human eyes
looking out of an animal's face?

Wisdom itself! Wisdom come to judgment.

There was a moment's pause. I clung to the howdah's side as if turned
to stone. I seemed to know what was coming--to realise the verdict
which that ultimate wisdom must give. Then in a clarion voice the words
came:

"By the order of the Lord Ganêsh, kill."

The softness, the tenderness of the snaky coil, so sensitive that the
finest thread in God's world can scarce escape it, changed suddenly to
iron. There was no cry, no struggle. Gwynne of Garthgwynne's body swung
high in air, then, flung from it with all leviathan's strength, fell,
and fell, and fell ...


                          *   *   *   *   *


When the roaring of the distant sea ceased in mine ears about a
fortnight afterwards, I found that the nine days' wonder of Gwynne of
Garthgwynne's disappearance on his wedding night had died down. He had
rushed out rollicking drunk--that all knew. He had not returned. The
butler sent out to seek for him had sought other seekers, but all in
vain. They were still dragging the mere for him, but the flood gates of
the river (of which it was a backwater) had been open that night, and
the body might have drifted out to sea. So there had been no wedding,
and a distant heir, barely related to the old stock, was ready to take
possession so soon as doubt was over. As for me, the early postman,
attracted by my moaning, had found me half-in and half-out of my blankets
in the _tente d'abri_ behind the bramble screen of the quarry.

Was it then all a dream? Even if it were not ...

Was it not the wisdom of our Lord Ganêsh?

I decided, at last, to say nothing about that dream of a marvellous
moonlight ride on an elephant over half Wales. Twinges of conscience
assailed me at times, but they were laid to rest for ever about
Christmas-tide, when, going through a small town in the Midlands, I was
met, in passing a new cottage hospital on its environs, by a glad cry--
"The very man I want! I've got a poor soul here who won't die. He ought
really to have been at peace two days ago--but he goes on and on. You
see, he's an Indian or something, and we can't speak the lingo--you
can, I expect?"

I followed the doctor, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, into the
ward, with a foreboding at my heart. I knew it was old Mahadeo, and
that, indeed, he wanted me. And it was. He lay tucked up between clean
sheets on an English bed with two English hospital nurses fadding about
him, speechless, gasping, at the very point and spit of death, yet
waiting--waiting ...

I knew what he wanted, and without a word, his dark eyes following me
in dim gladness, I threw back the clothes and got a firm grip of the
sheet at his head. He should at least die as a Hindu should die. "Now,
doctor!" I said, "if you'll take the feet we will let him find freedom
outside."

A nurse started forward. "But the case is pneumonia--double
pneumonia----"

The doctor hesitated; they always are in the hands of the nurses.

"Look here, Jones," I cried, sharply. "This man doesn't want clinical
thermometers, and draw-sheets, and caps. He wants freedom. He wants to
die as his religion tells him he must die, on Mother Earth--aye--even
if her bosom is white with snow."

And it was, for it was Christmas-tide.

So we lifted him out, the doctor and I, and laid him down on Heaven's
white quilt. He just rolled over, face down, into the cool pillow.

"_Râm-Râm--Sita-Râm_," I whispered, kneeling beside him to give the
last dying benediction of his race. Such a quaint one! Only the name of
what to it, is superman and superwoman. A last appeal to the higher
instincts of humanity.

There was one little sob. I thought I heard the beginning of the old
refrain:

"The wisdom of our Lord Ganêsh----" Then he had found freedom.

"You seem to know their ways, sir," said a horsey-looking man who had
come in with us and who had evidently something to do with the show.
"So, if you could give us a 'elp with this pore fellar's beast, I'd be
obliged. Hasn't touched food this ten days--never since the old man
took worse, and a elephant, sir, is a dead loss to a show. The master
lef' 'im here with me, but I'm blowed if I can do nothing with him."

I found Ganêsh happier than his master, for, no place being large
enough for him, he lay in the open; but they had stretched a tarpaulin
over him like a rick-cover, as a protection.

A glance told me he was far gone, though he lay crouched, not prone;
his trunk--marvellous agent for good or ill--stretched out before him
beyond shelter into the snow.

As I came up to him, I fancied I saw a flicker in his eyes, those eyes
so small, so full of wisdom. Then I laid in front of him the old man's
turban, ragged, worn, which I had begged of the prim nurses. In a
second the whole, huge, inert mass of flesh became instinct with life.
He rose to his feet with incredible swiftness, and softly encircling
the old ragged pugree, raised it gently and placed it in the master's
seat. For a moment I doubted what would come next; but the instinct
which is held in leviathan's small brain is great. He knew by some
mysterious art that the master was dead, that the human mind which had
been his guide was gone.

He took one step forward, threw up his trunk, and the echoes of the
surrounding houses cracked with the roaring bellow of his trumpet as he
swayed sideways and fell dead.

That was all the little smug provincial English town ever knew of the


                     "Wisdom of our Lord Ganêsh."




                          THE SON OF A KING


                                  I

"Barring my pay," he said, ruefully, "I haven't a coin in the world."
And for the moment, newly accepted lover as he was, his eyes actually
left hers and wandered away to the reddening yellow of the sunset with
a certain resentment at the limitations of his world.

"Father has plenty!" she put in joyously. And for the moment her hand
actually touched his in a new-born sense of appropriation and right of
re-assurance which made her blush faintly. It also made his eyes return
to hers, whereat she blushed furiously, and then tried to cover her
confusion by a jest. "Well! he has. Hasn't he the best collection of
coins in India?"

"He wouldn't part with one of them, though, for love or money. And I
doubt his parting with you--though I could pay a lot--in love."

He had both her hands now, and the very newness of the position made
her fence with the emotion it aroused.

"He parted with duplicates."

"But you aren't one--there isn't anyone like you in the wide, wide
world. And I'm glad you're not. I don't want anyone else to be as lucky
as I am."

She retreated still further from realities into jesting. "Then
he exchanges quite often, so, if you only set yourself to find
something----" She broke off, and her face lit up. "Oh, Jim! I have
such a delightful idea! You shall find the gold coin--you know the one
I mean--with the date that is to settle, or unsettle, half the history
of the world! Do you know, I really believe, if you helped him to
confound all those German wiseacres, that father would be quite willing
to exchange----"

"His daughter for the ducat! Perhaps. But, unfortunately--and quite
between ourselves--I have my doubts about the existence of that coin.
Or if it does exist it is hopelessly hidden away for ever and ever and
aye, like that blessed old buried city of his that we have all been
hunting after this month past in the wilderness. I don't wish to be
disrespectful to your father, Queenie, but I believe he dreamt of
it--that is to say, if it didn't dream of him--one never knows which
comes first----"

He paused, arrested in the egoism, the absolute individualism of love
by the mystery of the collective life which was part even of that love,
and once more his eyes wandered to the sun setting.

The sky had darkened on the horizon as the dust haze shadowed into
purple, so that the distant edge of the low sand-hills, losing definite
outline, seemed almost level. Yet far and near, from the feet of the
lovers as they sat close together to that uncertain ending of their
visible world, not a straight line was to be seen. Everything showed in
curves--curves that told their unflinching tale of unseen circlings.
The wrinkled ripples left by the last wind upon the sea of sand around
them waved over the endless undulations of the desert, the sparse
tussocks of coarse grass fell in fountains from their own centres, the
stunted thorn-bushes were coiled and twisted on themselves like tangled
skeins without a clue, the faint tracks of the sand-rats and the
partridges wound snake-like in every direction, and even the footprints
which had brought the two lovers in their present resting-place held
the same hint of reference to unseen continuity, for, absorbed in
Love's new world, they had wandered on aimlessly unheeding of the old
one at their feet.

The result stared them in the face, now, in a firm yet undecided trail
that was by far the most salient feature in the indefinite landscape.
Jim Forrester laughed as he directed her attention to it.

"We seem to have gone round and round on our tracks; so the tents, and
your respected father and civilisation generally must be--well! exactly
where I would have sworn they were not. But that just bears out what I
was saying. For all we know the whole thing may be a peculiarly vicious
circle! The world may be going back when we think it is going forward,
and all the fine new things we think we find, may only he ourselves
again. You and I, and the buried city and the gold coin--everything
that we dream of, or that dreams of us, may only be part of the hidden
circle which belongs to the curve of a life which has no straight
lines--My God! take care--what the devil is that?"

That, if anything, _was_ a straight line--straight as an arrow. And an
arrow it was, still vibrating in the soft sand at their very feet. Jim
Forrester stood up angrily and looked round for the archer who had
drawn his bow at such an unpleasantly close venture. But no one was
visible, so he stooped down and drew the arrow out of the sand. He had
seen its like, or almost its like, before in those wild central tracts
of sandy desert where the wandering tribes of goatherds still cling to
the weapons of a past age. His companion, however, had not, and she
bent to examine it curiously. The attitude made the fair coils of her
hair, which were plaited round her head, look more than ever like a
heavy gold crown.

"It takes one back to another world altogether," she said, watching him
as he balanced it critically to appraise the perfection of its poise.
"To a world where it was made, perhaps--for it looks old, doesn't it! I
wonder who----"

She paused, becoming conscious that someone was standing behind her.
Jim Forrester became conscious of the fact also, and showed it in such
an aggressive way that she exclaimed hastily:

"Don't be angry with him, please. It must have been quite a chance--he
couldn't have known we were here."

Even without the plea it would have been difficult for the young
Englishman to refuse the chance of explanation to the figure which had
appeared so unexpectedly. For, though in all outward accessories it was
only that of a wandering goatherd, there was a calm dignity about it
which claimed consideration. The fillet which bound the hair,
sun-ripened to a rich brown on its waves and curls, was only a knotted
bit of goats'-hair string, but the head it encircled had a youthful
buoyancy such as the Greek sculptors gave to the young Apollo, a
resemblance enhanced by the statuesque folds of the rough goats'-hair
blanketing which was sparsely draped over the bare, sinewy yet
fine-drawn frame.

The face, however, was faintly aquiline, and the eyes, deep set between
prominent brow and cheek bone, had the mingled fire and softness which
in India so often redeems an otherwise commonplace countenance.

"I was stalking bustard, Huzoor," said the goatherd frankly, with a
flash of very white teeth, "and being face down on the sand yonder
behind the grasses saw nothing till the Presences stood up, but a glint
of the sun on something."

He spoke to the man, but his eyes were on the girl's golden crown of
hair.

Jim Forrester suddenly broke the arrow across his knee and threw the
fragments from him into the sand ripples.

"Hand me over the bow, too," he said, peremptorily, then paused.
"Hullo! Where the deuce did you get that--it is very old--the oldest
I've seen--with a looped string, too?" he added, handling it curiously.

The goatherd smiled. "The Presence is welcome to keep it if he likes. I
can get plenty more in the old city."

Once again, in speaking to the man, his eyes, askance, were on the
girl.

She started. "In the old city," she echoed, "Jim! do you hear
that--then you know where the old city is?"

The goatherd almost laughed. "Wherefore not, malika sahiba
(queen-lady). Have I not lived in it always?"

"Lived in it! Then where is it?"

He swept a bronze hand in a circle which clipped her and him and the
distant horizon.

"Here, queen-lady."

"Here," echoed Jim Forrester, incredulously; "but there are absolutely
no signs of a city here."

"Plenty, Huzoor!" replied the goatherd, "if the Protector of the Poor
will only use his eyes. Look yonder, how the ground rises to meet the
curve of the sky; yonder, sahib, where the sunset red dyes deepest."

The young Englishman looked and frowned, but the girl gave a quick
exclamation, and laid a hasty, surprised touch on her lover's arm. "He
is right, Jim," she said; "why didn't we notice it before? It stands
out quite clear--an even rise all round centring on the unseen sun. How
very curious! Ask him his name, Jim, and all that, so that father may
be able to get hold of him. Fancy if we find the buried city--it would
be as good almost as the gold coin, though somehow it makes me feel
creepy." She gave a faint shiver as she spoke.

"The queen-lady should not remain in the wilderness when the sun has
set," came in swift warning from the goatherd; "there is a fever fiend
lurks in it and brings strange dreams."

Something almost of familiarity and command in the liquid yet vibrant
voice made Jim Forrester frown again and say, shortly, "Yes; we must
get back; it grows quite cold."

The girl looked half bewildered first to one and then to the other of
the two tall figures that stood between her and the fast-fading light,
against which she still saw clearly that faint swelling domed blue
shadow, as of some other world forcing its way through the crust of the
visible one.

So she stood silent, vaguely disturbed while the few questions
necessary to identify the man who answered them were asked.

She did not speak, indeed, until with faces set on the right path for
their camp and civilisation generally, they paused on the top of the
first sand-rippled wave to look back. The shadowy dome was still there,
swelling towards the vanished sun, and from its side the figure of the
young goatherd rose into the darkening dust haze. He was calling to his
flock, and the words of his old-time chant were clearly audible:


      "O, seekers for Life's meat,
       Your course is run!
       Come home with weary feet,
       Rest is so sweet.
       What though one day be done?--
       Another has begun.
       The flock, the fold are one,
       Where long years meet!"


"I hope he told us his real name!" she said, suddenly.


                                  II

"My dear child, all your geese are swans--and so were your poor
mother's before you," said her father. And then his eyes grew dreamy,
perhaps over the intricacies of some new coins he was classifying;
though, in truth, the memory of the young wife who had left him alone
with a week-old baby in the days of his youth had somehow come harder
to him during the last few happier, more home-like years since his
daughter had returned to take her mother's place as mistress of the
house; for the girl was very like the dead woman.

She had brought her father his afternoon cup of tea to the
office-tent, cleared for that brief recess of the cloud of clerks and
witnesses, who through the wide canvas-wings, set open to let in the
air, could be seen huddled in groups among the sparse shadows of the
stunted kikar trees amid which the camp was pitched. They could be
heard also, since in the limited leisure at their disposal they were
hubble-hubbling away at their hookahs conscientiously; the noise in its
rhythmic, intermittent insistency seemed like a distant snore from the
sleepy desert of sand that stretched away to the horizon on all sides.

"Of course," he went on, "you could hardly be expected to know--though
really, my dear, you have all your mother's quickness of perception
regarding people and places--but the mere fact of that goatherd fellow
giving his name as Khesroo, and admitting he was low-caste, should have
made you doubt his assertion. I confess I had little hope, for such
knowledge as he professed to have is generally in the keeping of the
priesthood only."

"But Jim was there--I mean Mr. Forrester," she began. Her father
coughed uneasily.

"Because I call my personal assistant, whom I have known as a child,
Jim, that is no reason, my dear Queenie, why you should contract the
habit. I don't think your poor mother would have liked it. Besides,
though he is an able young man--very much so, indeed, and when he
grows older will make an excellent officer--Mr. Forrester--ahem!"
(he made a violent effort over the name) "has no genius for
antiquities. He utterly fails, for instance, to realise the
far-reaching importance--for it would, of course, alter the whole
chronology of the Græco-Bactrian era--of my contention concerning
what Hausmann and the German school generally venture to designate a
post-Vicramaditya. Yet some day, I feel sure, the gold coin of which
Kapala gives so exact a description in B.C. 200, with the date under
the legend and a double profile on the obverse, will turn up, and then
the point will be settled, even if I do not live to see it."

He was fairly off on his hobby and had risen to pace the tent, his
hands behind his back. Many a time and oft she had listened to him
patiently, almost eagerly, for the story of India's golden age always
fired her imagination, but to-day she was thinking of other things--of
her engagement for one, which she must break to him sooner or later. So
she went up to him and tucked her arm into his coaxingly.

"You may, father. It might be found any day. Do you know, I believe you
would give almost anything--even your daughter--for that ducat.
Wouldn't you?"

Absolute jest as it was, her voice trembled over the trivial words, as
voices often do unconsciously when Fate means to turn them to her own
purposes.

He smiled and patted her hand. "Undoubtedly, I would, my dear. But,
nice as you are, no one is likely to offer me that exchange. To begin
with, the coin, as a simple unique, would be worth a fortune, and then
there is the fame. Think of it! Half the philologists, most of the
historians, and all those German fellows routed on their own ground!"

"Who knows?" she said, and then a frown dimmed the amusement in her
eyes. "Though I can't understand," she added, "why that man Khesroo
denied--as you say he did--having met Jim--I mean, us--yesterday. He
can't be the wrong man, can he?"

"Mr. Forrester thinks he is not. But you can see for yourself," replied
her father, returning to his tea and his treasures, "for he is still
over in the orderlies' tent. They had such trouble hunting him out of
the jungles and persuading him to come here that they said they must
keep him overnight, anyhow, in case he was wanted."

An hour or so afterwards, therefore, a yellow-legged constable escorted
the goatherd who had answered to the name of Khesroo into the verandah
of the Miss-Sahiba's drawing-room tent. It, also, was set wide to the
cool of the desert evening, and its easy-chairs and low, flower-decked
tables strewn with books and magazines struck a curiously dissonant
note from that sounded by the wilderness of sandy waste which on all
sides hemmed in the little square of white-winged camp with a certain
hungry emptiness.

"He is the man, Jim," said the girl, in an undertone (for her father
had come over from office and was seated within, reading the daily
papers which the camel-post had just brought). "And yet--he looks
different somehow--and so ill, too."

He did look ill, with the languid yet harassed air which follows on
malarial fever. The buoyancy of his carriage was replaced by an almost
dejected air. Yet it was unmistakably the goatherd they had met the
evening before, who, in obedience to a sign, squatted down midway, as
it were, between the culture inside the tent and the savagery without
it.

"You look as if you had been having fever--have you?" asked the girl
abruptly, for her years of authority had made her knowledgeable in such
things.

"The malika sahiba says right," replied Khesroo, indifferently. "I have
had it much--this long while back."

"And you had it yesterday or the day before?"

"It was yesterday. I was put past by it all day. And yet----" here a
vague perplexity came to the dulled yet anxious face as he looked first
at the girl, then apologetically at Jim Forrester. "What the Presence
said about meeting me is perhaps right after all. Yes! it is right. I
did see the Huzoor. I have remembered from the graciousness of the
queen-lady and the gold crown of her hair."

The young Englishman frowned angrily. "You work miracles in memory, my
dear Queenie," he said, and there was quite an aggrieved tone in his
voice as he turned shortly on the speaker. "Why on earth didn't you
tell the truth before, then? And the old city? I suppose you remember
all about that, too?"

"The old city," echoed Khesroo, doubtfully. "No, Huzoor! What should I
know about it beyond what all know--that there was a city, and that it
is lost? Such as I know only what the wise tell them----" he paused,
and even to his deprecation came a half-resigned self-assertion,
"And yet I had more chance than most, seeing that my mother was
twice-born."

"She was, was she?" put in his hearer, and then looked round towards
his chief. "Do you hear that, sir? His mother was a Brahmani--that may
account for his profile, which you said this morning puzzled you in a
low-caste man."

"I said it was Scythic in type, and so it is," was the answer, as the
speaker laid down his paper and came forward for further inspection.
"So your mother was twice-born," he continued, addressing the goatherd;
"a child-widow, I suppose?"

Khesroo stretched his hand out, the fingers wide-spread in a dignified
assent, which suited him better than his former almost cringing
humility.

"Huzoor, yes! Her people, however, did not find her till I was nigh
six; but after that, of course, I was alone."

A hush fell on the group, for--to those three listeners who understood
them--the simple words told of a common enough tragedy in India; of a
life denied all natural outlet, of unworthy love, of outraged pride of
race followed by sure, if slow, revenge.

"And your father--who was he?"

Kresroo shook his head. "I had no one but my mother, Huzoor."

There was another hush, on which the girl's voice rose clear with a
curious thrill in it.

"And she was very beautiful, was she not?"

"Her son is a good-looking fellow, at any rate," remarked Jim
Forrester, coolly, and moving away, he took up the newspaper, conscious
of a certain irritation, and began to read the latest report of
wireless telegraphy with the unsuspicious and unquestioning assent
which we of these latter days reserve for the marvels of matter only.

Her father having gone back to his papers also, the girl and the
goatherd were left alone midway between civilisation and savagery.
Huddled in his coarse blanketing, his bare arms crossed over his bare
knees, there was nothing distinctive or unusual in Khesroo's figure,
behind which the background of shadowy desert was fast fading into
shadowy sky, except the haggardness of the aquiline face, the
hollowness of the dark eyes. These struck her, and she stretched out
her hand to feel his.

"Have you fever now? No, you are quite cool."

He shivered slightly at her touch, and his eyes, passing hers, seemed
to rest on the plaits of her hair.

"No, Huzoor," he replied, "it is a thief fever--it is hard to catch."

She smiled. "I think quinine will manage it."

He shook his head. "Nothing catches that which robs us of life at its
own time. It will leave me none some day." He spoke unconcernedly, as
if the fact were beyond question.

"Then why do you wear that amulet if it is of no use?" she said,
pointing to the little leathern bag, such as the wild tribes use for
the carrying of charms, which was tied round his arm.

Khesroo shook his head again, but smiled this time, and the flash of
his white teeth must have removed any doubt of his identity, had such
doubt existed.

"The queen-lady mistakes," he said. "It does not contain a charm. It is
my _photongrar_."

"Your what?" she echoed, uncomprehending.

"_Photongrar_. The picture, Huzoor, that the sun holds always of all
things it has ever seen in the world. It showed this to a memsahiba
long ago when I was little, and she showed it to my mother."

"You mean your photograph?"

"Huzoor, yes! Perhaps the queen-lady might care to see it, since it is
like my mother as she was--_before they found her!_"

Perhaps it was the thought of what the poor woman must have been like
_after_ that finding which made the English girl feel a vague
oppression as she took the tight roll of paper that Khesroo unfolded
from a piece of red rag.

"I was five, Huzoor," he said simply, "and my mother loved me much."

Small wonder, was the girl's first thought as she looked at the sedate,
yet childish face, half-concealed by the high turban, which had
evidently been borrowed for the occasion, at the quaint dignity of the
childish figure huddled into finery too large for it, and holding a
flower in its hand as if it had been a sceptre. But as she looked, a
startled expression came over her face; she stood up and hurried to her
father, with appeal in her voice.

"Oh, father! do look here! How very curious! This photograph of Khesroo
when he was a child--I think mother must have taken it, for I am almost
sure there is one like it in her diary--in the volume you gave me to
read the other day, because we were camping through the same country.
Stay! I'll fetch it----"

She was back in a moment with an unclasped book in her hand, and
fluttered hastily through pages and sketches, almost to the end.

"There!" she cried, suddenly, "I was sure of it!"

Her father laid the one photograph beside the other, and Jim Forrester,
looking over his shoulder curiously, compared them also. They were
identical. But underneath the one pasted into the book a woman's hand
had written:


                        "_The Son of a King!_"


The title fitted the picture, and reminded the girl of something in
Khesroo which had struck her yesterday and which was absent to-day. She
turned over the page, but beyond it all was blank. Those words were the
last in the diary.

"I think I remember something about it now, my dear," said her
father, taking his hand away from the book gently; "it may have been
the last she took, for I was camping round here as assistant just
before--before you were born. And she was always taking children and
giving pictures to the mothers; not that I remember that particular
one--you see it must be fifteen years ago--at least."

"Nearer five-and-twenty, dear," she said, softly, and as she realised
the impotence of what the world counts as time to touch the smallest
thing that once has been, the utter irrelevance of days and weeks and
years in connection with a single thought, the photographs before her
grew dim to her eyes, the fine feminine writing with its verdict, "The
Son of a King," became invisible.

So through her tears she saw only--blurred and indistinct--the
wondering face of Khesroo the goatherd.

"Look!" she said, in sudden impulse. "The sun must have held two
pictures of you."

He stared at the duplicate stupidly. "I did not steal it," he began,
uneasily.

"Of course you didn't," she replied, smiling now. "It was my mother who
took the picture, and gave it to yours--she was the mem-sahiba you
spoke of--perhaps you remember her?"

A look almost of relief came to the goatherd's haggard, anxious face.
"Yes! Perhaps your slave remembers, and that is why he thought he
recollected the graciousness of the queen-lady and the gold crown of
her hair. That will be it, and your slave did not lie to the Huzoor."
He looked apologetically towards the young Englishman; but the latter
had once more an aggrieved tone in his voice as he said shortly in
English:

"Whether he did or did not doesn't much matter. There isn't anything to
be got out of him apparently, so perhaps you had better tell the
orderly to take him back to the tent and see that he takes the quinine
you send--as I suppose you will."


                                 III

"I meant to tell him yesterday, Jim," said the girl, in an undertone,
glancing with almost maternal solicitude at her father, who was writing
within, his grey, somewhat bald head shining out in the light of the
lamp by which he was working, against the intense shadowy darkness of
the tent walls, "but that disappointment about the lost city, wasn't,
so to say, propitious. And to-day there was that letter from Hausmann
about the coin somebody has discovered, which has quite upset him. Poor
father," she added, turning to her lover again, "it will be hard on
him. Did you notice how he said it was but fifteen years ..."

She broke off and looked out into the night. The stars were showing
overhead through the fine fret of the kikar trees, though the horizon
still held a hint of the day that was dead. Against this paler
background she fancied she could see--itself a shadow, yet half hidden
by shadow--that curving dome as of a new world forcing its way through
the crust of the old, or an old one through the new.

"It was odd about those photographs, wasn't it?" she said,
irrelevantly. "He must be five years older than I am."

"His age is honoured by the comparison."

"My dear Jim," she interrupted, opening her eyes, "this unfortunate
goatherd seems----"

"I said he was fortunate, I think. But I admit hating things I don't
quite understand."

"Then you must hate me--now don't be angry," she added: "I mean no
blame. I very often don't understand myself."

"I know that--and that is why I want this business settled and
clear--you--you seem so far off sometimes."

There was a passion in his voice; he stretched his hands out to her as
she stood apart, her filmy dinner dress looking ghostly and elusive
seen half in the dark, half by the feeble light from within the tent.

She stretched out her hands also, but there was all the world between
his almost pathetic appeal and her almost amused repulse.

"You must make haste and find the ducat, Jim. I feel sure that without
it--and especially in his present mood--father will never consent----"

He certainly did not seem in a consenting frame of mind as he came out
to them with the offending letter from Hausmann in his hand.

"I've answered it," he said, sternly, "but as the man is an ass, he
will most likely miss the point, which is, of course, Kapala's
description of this coin. He says distinctly that it has one profile
superimposed on another with the legend beneath, and the date below the
flower on the obverse. Really, child, I think I will get you to figure
it for me, since Hausmann seems unable to understand words."

"You could use the handsome goatherd as a model, you know," remarked
Jim Forrester, vaguely surprised at his own irritation; "your father
said his features were Scythic."

"Yes!" assented the numismatist, abstractedly, as he tried to re-read
part of the offending missive by the distant light of the lamp; "rather
an uncommon type in India, nowadays, though one sees it elsewhere.
Queenie has it partly--your mother had Russian blood in her, you know."

"Perhaps that is why I feel so interested in Khesroo," said the girl,
looking coldly askance at her lover.

"Oh, by the way," put in her father, breaking in on his own indignation
and the silence which ensued between those two who loved each other--a
silence which both felt to be at once incomprehensible yet inevitable,
intolerable yet in a way rascinating--"that reminds me. The orderlies
reported he was bad with fever to-night. Send him over some more
quinine."

"I'll take it, if you like," said Jim Forrester, faintly penitent.

She looked at the two men with disdainful tolerance. "I will see him
first. One never knows what these people call fever--it may be
pneumonia."

She moved off as she spoke, into the night, meaning to cross over
towards the orderlies' tent, then paused to glance back at the
figure--which followed. "Are you coming, too?" she said, curtly. "I can
manage all right."

"Of course I am coming!" replied Jim Forrester. "It is pitch dark,
to begin with, and I can at least help you to find your patient. I
think you had better keep outside the camp, so as to avoid the
tent-ropes--it isn't any longer, really."

It was, if anything, shorter, but it brought them instantly into the
grip, as it were, of the desert, which crept hungrily upon the camp on
all sides; so that, ere they had gone five steps beyond the canvas
wings of the tent, they seemed as much alone, as far from conventional
twentieth-century life, as they had been two days before, when they
first sat together as betrothed lovers in the sunset of a world of
curves telling the tale of eternal, of unseen circlings. Even so much
of Life's secret was invisible now. All they saw was a darkness they
knew to be wilderness, a dim outline of themselves, close together,
hand in hand. For with the knowledge that they were alone--perhaps with
the memory of the wilderness--they had clasped hands instinctively, and
for the time the sense of stress and strain had passed.

It returned again, however, with curious vividness, as, right in their
path, a shadow, dim as their own, showed suddenly.

She knew who it was instinctively before it spoke.

"I thought you had fever," she said. "Why are you here?"

"I have been waiting the graciousness of the queen-lady," came the
reply, and the voice was buoyant with joyous vitality. "I have to tell
her my dreams--the fever always brings dreams, and I remember now! Yea!
I remember all things from the beginning. So, if she will come, I will
show her the lost city where we lived, and she will dream the dream
also."

Dimly, in the darkness, she fancied she could see the shining of his
eyes, see his beckoning hand. What her lover saw was a movement of the
shadow towards the wilderness: what he felt was a faint increase in the
distance between his hand and hers which made him claim it again.

"Queenie!" he cried, "what are you thinking of? You can't possibly go
now. The man is delirious with fever--surely you hear that in his
voice. You had better come back to the tent and let me send someone to
take him into shelter and look after him."

For an instant no one spoke, and then it seemed almost a bodiless voice
from the desert which broke the silence, for in his desire to detain
her, Jim Forrester had drawn the girl back a pace or two, so that the
darkness lay deeper between their two shadows and that third one nearer
the wilderness.

"Let the queen-lady decide for herself. If she comes, I will show her
all forgotten things--the golden crown that is not plaited hair, the
golden coin that was made for the lovers----"

"Jim," she whispered, almost fiercely, "do you hear? It is the gold
coin--it is waiting to be found. I must go----"

"This is pure folly," protested the young Englishman. "If anyone has to
go, I will, of course. But what hurry is there? Why not wait till
to-morrow--now, do be reasonable, Queenie, and consider----"

She ceased trying to release her hand, and when she spoke again it was
in a natural tone.

"Yes. I forgot that. Khesroo, I will come with you to-morrow. It will
be easier by daylight. Go back to the orderlies' tent now, and I will
send you over some more medicine, and when the fever has gone----"

"The dreams will have gone, too," came the voice out of the night; but
it, also, was more natural, more like that of Khesroo the goatherd. "I
shall forget again, and then the gold coin that was struck for her and
her lover----"

"For her and her lover," echoed the girl, softly. "Did you hear, Jim? I
must go and get it for you."

"Long--long ago----" came the voice again.

She echoed the words almost inaudibly this time, and Jim Forrester drew
her closer as he said sharply: "If anyone goes, I will; but I don't
see----"

The voice interrupted him. "But the queen-lady sees. She is like her
mother; she sees pictures in the sun. Of course, the Huzoor can come;
but if the queen-lady really wants this thing--if she believes--if she
trusts----"

"Let me go, Jim! let me go!"

"You shall not," he cried, seizing her round the waist in swift
antagonism to some unseen influence, in sudden consciousness of
conflict.

And so to both him and her in the darkness and stillness of the desert,
within a few steps only of quiet, comfortable, commonplace
civilisation, came like a whirlwind a perfect tumult of bewildering
emotions, and all the deathless forces which never slumber or sleep in
their work of moulding the soul of man, leapt from silence into speech.
Love, jealousy, hatred, resolve, high courage--all these seemed to
sweep through their every fibre of mind and body, leaving them
breathless, wondering, uncertain if they were awake or dreaming, if
they were real or mere shadows of a reality which Time cannot touch or
alter. For an instant only they were conscious of all this--but the
instant might have been an hour in its suggestion of infinite
experience.

Then Time claimed them once more, time and trivialities and
commonsense, so that ten minutes afterwards, Jim Forrester, having made
his preparations for a tramp into the desert, was stooping to say
good-night to his betrothed and to assure her of his speedy return. The
moon would rise in half-an-hour, the distance to the place where they
had first met Khesroo could not be over three miles, he would be back
by midnight.

Meanwhile, she could tell her father he had turned in, but if she chose
herself to sit up--well ...

As their lips met lingeringly, a little breeze that had wandered from
the desert shifted a ripple or two on the sand-waves about their feet,
and died away like a sigh in the fine fret of the kikar trees above the
unseen tents.


                                  IV

It was an hour before dawn.

The desert itself could scarcely have been stiller than the camp. In
the white moonlight the white tents looked like some shrouded city of
the dead, forgotten yet unburied; for, here and there, some out in the
moonlit open, other flecked with the fine shadow of the kikar trees,
lay corpse-like figures swathed in sheets, as if waiting for their
graves. There was no sound, no sign of life, not even where the
moonlight, slanting through the still, wide-set wings of the
drawing-room tent, showed the folds of a woman's dress, the daintiness
of a high-heeled shoe.

The rest of the figure was in shadow, though the light, in its last
effort against the darkness of the tent, claimed the pages of the open
book which lay on the sleeping girl's lap, and turned one of them into
a silver framing for the photograph of a child. So vivid was the light
that even the fine feminine writing beneath it showed in the dead
woman's verdict:


                        "_The Son of a King!_"


For the girl had been pondering over the strange chance which had
brought her, in her turn, within the influence of this nameless
kingship when, as she waited for her lover's return, she had fallen
asleep in her chair. And yet, as she had sat there, thinking, watching,
she had felt very wide awake indeed. Not with anxiety, however; that
had passed. In fact, as she followed in her mind what had gone before
Jim Forrester's quite prosaic start to walk three or four miles into
the wilderness on a moonlight night to be shown the bearings of a
buried city and possibly to be given proof positive that there were
ruins beneath the sand, she had been in grave doubt as to what had
actually occurred. Had there been conflict? Had love and jealousy and
hatred and resolve risen up and claimed them all? Surely not. Why,
indeed, should it be so? Though, doubtless, in her, in her lover, in
the goatherd, there was something held, as it were, in common, yet
which had struggled to be individual, separate.

And this had been most marked between the young Englishman and the
goatherd. Unaccountable as it was, she felt that in some mysterious
fundamental mind of hers these two were associated indissolubly--that
they stood towards her on the same plane. Nay, more! that it was the
consciousness of this which kept her calm, which overbore the
possibility of future danger, the memory of past conflict. What harm
could happen to the Son of a King or with the Son of a King?

The phrase had been on her lips as she fell asleep. It was on them as
she awoke and stood up suddenly, the open book sliding soundless from
her lap into the soft sand. But the phrase brought no comfort with it
now. Had she been asleep for long! Had her lover returned? Was it past
midnight?

The anxious questions surged up through the crust of calm before she
was half awake, and instinctively she was outside the tent in a moment
on her way towards her lover's, her rapid feet, shod in the dainty
high-heeled slippers, dimpling the shifting sand.

The coming dawn had sent cloud heralds to the west, and an advanced
pursuivant, drifting across the moon, shadowed all things faintly and
seemed to increase the silence.

She called softly; there was no reply, so she looked in. A glance told
her that her lover had not returned, and the light stealing in through
the uplifted screen showed her by the travelling-clock hung to the
tent-pole that it was already past three o'clock.

Three! What had happened--and what was to be done? For an instant the
ordinary inrush of anxiety made her think of rousing the camp, of
sending out search-parties; but the next brought her a curious
conviction that in this case danger lay in seeking outside help: a
certainty that in this matter she must stand alone, that in this
crisis--whatever it was--there must be but three alone--if, indeed,
there were three--herself, her lover, and this nameless Son of a King.

So, almost without a pause, the dimples left by her rapid feet were
curving towards the highest sand-wave within sight of the camp. Thence
she could watch the desert sea, and perhaps find him, even now, close
at hand. But once there, the next sand-wave attracted her as being a
better point of vantage, and so from wave to wave she flitted in her
white dress like some desert bird, leaving behind her a curved track of
dimples in the sliding sand, until a little wind, the herald blast of
the hurrying clouds overhead, crept low down over the world and swept
the dimples back into the old ripples.

"Khesroo!" she called, suddenly, for a shadow seemed beside hers in
that empty wilderness; but there was no answer.

"Jim!" she called again, uncertainly; but there was no reply. Yet she
was not frightened. She knew now, in that mysterious fundamental mind
of hers, that she alone was responsible, that she, and she only, could
solve the riddle. Khesroo had been right. If she wanted this thing, if
she had believed, if she had trusted, she would have gone before. And
now she must hurry, or it would be too late--wherefore or for what she
scarcely considered.

"Khesroo!" she called once more, and this time there was a faint
inflection of fear in her voice; for was that figure Khesroo, the
goatherd, or was it her lover? Or was it neither; but someone only of
whom she had dreamt as the Son of a King?

Should she go back? The wish struck her keenly, but she ignored it, and
went on. She must, she knew, have left the camp far behind her, and, if
she had kept the right direction, would soon be close on the spot where
that straight line of an arrow had startled her by its intrusion into
her dream of love.

If she had kept it! And surely she had, for behind her the east was
faintly lightening with the dawn. Yonder, therefore, in the dark of the
heralding clouds which had huddled upon the western horizon must lie
the domed shadows of the buried city.

"Khesroo!" she cried, instinctively, the very soul of her speaking,
"show it to me! For the sake of the woman who died, as women die for a
life of love, a love of life, show it to me!"

And then, behind her, she heard a voice chanting, as Khesroo, the
goatherd, had chanted, the call of guidance for the wanderers in the
desert. Yet the words were different; for these were they:


             "Seekers for sleep, arise!
              Your rest is done.
              Go forth with weary eyes
              To find your prize
              In vain, in vain! To none
              Will slumber have begun
              Till from the heart of one
                  Desire dies."


Listening, she turned to look, then realised that in her searching she
must once more have circled back on her own footsteps, for behind and
not before her, dark, clear, unmistakable, the domed shadow of the lost
city lay against the lightening east. And on its swelling side, as
Khesroo had stood before, he stood again. Was it the rising sun which
turned the fillet of knotted cord about his head to gold?--which dyed
the coarse blanketing to royal purple, and transformed the wearer into
the perfect kingliness of buoyant youth and beauty? She never knew. She
only felt that something stronger than herself caught her, held her,
clasped her, and yet drew her on, so that with hands outstretched she
ran towards it, crying between smiles and tears:

"The Son of a King! The Son of a King!"

The next instant she had tripped and fallen heavily on her face over a
tangled tuft of grass concealing an unusually deep descent of a desert
wave. As she picked herself up, confused, somewhat dazed, and paused to
free her eyes from the sand grains which clouded them, something almost
at her feet brought her back to realities, and she gave a quick
exclamation. For in the hollow beneath the wave, where he had evidently
sought shelter deliberately, Jim Forrester lay curled up comfortably,
fast asleep. At least, so it seemed, though Khesroo's quaint old bow
must surely make rather an uncomfortable pillow.

She stooped over the sleeping man, and for an instant her face
whitened; she bent lower to listen to his breathing. And as she
listened a couple of startled sand-chaffs fled from a neighbouring
thorn bush, their chuckling cry echoing over the desert like an evil
laugh.

But a minute afterwards, in answer to her touch, Jim Forrester was
staring at her trying to collect his sleep-scattered senses.

"Hullo!" he said, slowly. "How on earth did I--Ah! I remember. That
brute of a goatherd played the garden ass and I lost him, so after
wandering about for hours, I turned in till daylight. But you--my
dearest dear----"

He started to his feet as he realised her presence there, and held out
both his hands to her.

As he did so, something dropped from them and lay glittering on the
sand at his feet. It was a gold coin.

They looked at each other, amazed; then she stooped and picked it up.

"A double profile," she said slowly, holding it so as to catch the
growing sunlight, "and the legend round"--she spelt it out from the
Greek lettering--"'Basileus Basileon.'"

"And the date," he cried, "the date!"

"Yes, the date is there," she replied, still more slowly turning to the
obverse, "the bird and the date--it is all right--but I was thinking of
the other----"

"What other?"

"Basileus Basileon--'the King of Kings,'" she said softly, and looked
out towards the sunrise. But the light had claimed the whole world and
sent all shadows flying.

So happily, prosaically, they went home to breakfast. Yet there was one
thing which she never told anyone, perhaps because it might
have stood in the way of the popular explanation of the whole
affair--namely, that Khesroo had happened on the coin and must have put
it in Jim Forrester's hand after the latter fell asleep. So, not even
when her father proudly pointed out to admirers that the double profile
was that of a man and a woman, and that the latter, curiously enough,
might almost be a portrait of his married daughter, did she ever say
that when she found her husband asleep in the sand that morning, the
looped bowstring of Khesroo the goatherd's bow was loose about his
neck.

But she often wonders if it would have been drawn tighter had she not
gone to seek for what she wanted.




                          THE BIRTH OF FIRE


The night was clear and silent.

The light-pulse of the stars as they wheeled with slow certainty to
meet the dawn was the only visible movement in the whole expanse of
shadowed earth and sky.

And the only sound audible was my own life breath as I sate beside the
glowing embers of the camp fire.

Strictly speaking, however, there was no camp, for I, and the two
coolies who carried my breakfast, had missed our way in our detour
through the eternal sameness of faint curve and level in the wide
uplands, and finally, in despair of rejoining our tents, had bivouacked
as best we could on the shore of a small frozen lake; one of those
obstinate, rock-bound pools which, even when spring has set seal of
conquest on the world, refuse to melt, and so yield up their treasure
of sweet water to its renewed thirst for Life.

My servants had forced this particular lakelet to philanthropy with
rude blows; wantonly rude it had seemed to me, as I watched the swift
shiver with which the stable unity of surface had split into forlorn
fragments of ice, each adrift at the mercy of that which they had held
prisoner for so long.

The other necessary element, fire, my men had also commandeered by a
raid on the low juniper which crept like moss below the taller grasses
of the plain.

The result had not been altogether satisfactory, for the pungent
smoke of the aromatic wood had--at least, so the sufferers averred,
though, at the time, I suspected a recourse for comfort to my
whisky-flask--produced unmistakable symptoms of intoxication in the
amateur cooks, who, after valiantly serving me up a réchauffé of
breakfast had succumbed to sleep. The mattress of creeping juniper on
which they lay like logs was springy enough to have hidden them from
sight even if the shadowed earth had not been so dark; for it was dark,
formless, void, as only an unbroken expanse of featureless plain can be
when the very sky grows velvet black because of the infinitely distant
brilliance of the stars. Indeed, the uniformity of indefinable shadow
was almost oppressive, although I knew right well the scene that lay
around me; for who that has once seen it can fail of seeing again with
the mind's eye the marvellous mosaic as of white marble and precious
jewels which covers the high upland stretches of the World's Roof, when
the winter snow retreats reluctantly, as if loth to leave the carpeting
of spring flowers which follow on its fleeing footsteps.

I even remembered as I watched the embers that just behind them,
finding faint shelter from a solitary boulder, there grew a tiny azalea
I had never seen before; a fragile, leafless thing set sparsely with
sweet-scented flowers that were flecked rose on saffron like a sunset
sky.

And the silence was oppressive also. I caught myself
listening--listening almost breathlessly--for a sound--for some sound!
But there was not even a whisper among the tall grasses.

In sudden impulse I threw a fresh juniper branch upon the embers, and
the silence, the stillness ended as if by magic; for the green spines
spat and sputtered as they shrivelled, and sent out a dense cloud of
smoke to circle up endlessly into the darkness.

A pungent smoke indeed! Involuntarily I drew back from it and covered
my eyes with my hand waiting until the smouldering should lighten into
flame.

The waiting, however, prolonged itself strangely. No flicker of light
reached me, and I began to wonder dreamily what had happened; so
dreamily, indeed, that when at last I looked up, I did so reluctantly,
and with a curious sense of confusion.

It was this, no doubt, which prevented surprise at finding that I was
no longer the solitary watcher of those dull embers.

Opposite me, nearly hidden in the endless curlings of the juniper smoke
was a man crouching towards the fire as if he felt the cold of the high
uplands. Only his face, and the hands he held towards the heat, showed
clearly; the rest was lost in billowy clouds which, drifting upwards
behind him, obscured the very stars.

I sate silent for a while, disinclined even for curiosity, and then,
rather to my own surprise, I spoke as I might have spoken to a familiar
friend.

"You are cold, I'm afraid."

To this day, I do not know in what language he replied--if, indeed! he
spoke at all. My only recollection is of the eloquence of liquid,
lustrous eyes, the confident certainty of comprehension which is the
child's ere it can speak articulately.

"I am a Star-gazer; so the Fire draws me."

"Why?"

"Why? Surely all know it is the Star Fire which fell when She first
came to me--Hai-me! Hai-me! When She first came and laid her hand in
mine."

The drifting billows parted, showing the stars above his head, then
closed again, blotting them out; blotting out all things, it seemed to
me, even my own self as I sate listening to the faint wail which rose
vaguely, filling the wide shadows.

"Io! Io! Disturber of dreams, why didst thou come? Io! Io! Bringer of
dreams, why didst go? Lo! the Star fire was not thine though thou
earnest with the Fire of the Star."

Through the pungent aroma of the burning branches, a faint breath of
perfume from the sunset-dyed azalea swept, mingling with it, and so
passing with it into the endless circling.

The lustrous eyes drooped, losing their brilliance; but when they
looked up again only serene confident comprehension was there.

"In forest days none of us were Star-gazers, for there was no Rim to
the world on which the following Footsteps could be seen. But when we
left the forest for the upland, with its milch kine and seed grains, we
learnt to look; for there was the Rim. And all things went to stand on
it and disappear among the Stars.

"So, gazing, we saw that the Stars disappeared also; they, too, were
following the Footsteps. But they never came back as they went, like
other things. Their footsteps were faithful; so faithful that you could
foretell by them the ripening of the seed grains, the coming of milk to
the herds.

"So gazing, we wondered. Here by this pool I watched, taking no need of
harvest or milk time; but I saw nothing but the following Footsteps and
the footsteps of the Stars.

"Nothing, though I followed with mine eyes, wheeling as the Stars
wheeled to meet the dawn while the shadows and my kind, and all other
things, slept as they do now."

They slept, indeed! The very smoke had ceased to circle. It hung in
motionless curves, soft, impenetrable, and I could see nothing now save
the lustrous eyes, and the dull glow of the fire.

"So I gazed, until one night, as I stood following the footsteps of the
faithful Stars with mine eyes, the knowledge came to me, that as I
stood watching them, so Someone stood watching me and all things.
Someone who did not move. And I was glad, though I was afraid.

"But that dawn, when I went down after our custom to gather the seed
grains with my kind, they looked at me askance as if I were a stranger.
Only Io, she of the beautiful young one that all cherished, paused as
she suckled it to follow me with curious wondering eyes."

There was a pause, and through it came, soft as a sigh, that faint
wail:

"Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, why didst come? Io! Io! Bringer of
Dreams, why didst thou go?"

"It was cold here, on the uplands, gazing; but the faithful Stars shone
quite near me. It seemed as if I could reach up and clasp them. And I
was faithful as they in the Footsteps; for I have driven a stake of
wood into the ground firm as the ground itself, and night after night,
as I watched the Stars wheel, I twirled the slender wand I held in my
hands upon it, following their faithful Footsteps so that the Someone
who watched might see me even as they were!

"And I was happy, though I was afraid.

"But one night, when the tall grasses were stiff and the low green
things were white with the cold, my fingers could scarce twirl the
wand, and the fear lest the Someone might grow angry with me came so
strong that suddenly I lifted my head and cried to It to be kind.

"How the stars shone! My hands longed to leave the wand and reach them,
and in me there rose a great new joy, as if I had found myself.

"But that Dawn, when I went after the custom to gather the grain with
my kind, they fled from me as if I had been an enemy.

"Only Io, she of the beautiful young one, with her breasts full of
milk, left the cherished one athirst to follow my footsteps and hold
out a handful of the grain she had gathered for herself.

"But I feared her and she feared me, so she left it lying on the
ground, and afterwards I went and ate it, for I was hungry. But the
touch of her hand that was on the grain touched my lips so that I felt
it even as I gazed.

"Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, why didst come? Io! Io! Why didst thou
go? The Star fire was not thine, though thou wast in the fire of the
Star!"

Even the lustrous eyes were hidden from me now; I saw nothing but the
fading glow of the embers as I sate listening amid the uttermost peace
of all things to that soft almost voiceless wail.

"The nights grew hot, and the tall grasses crackled in the drought, and
the low green things wilted to greyness. But I cared not, for I had
found myself, and I knew there was a Beginning and an End. And even
that touch on my lips did not disturb my dreams as, faithful as they, I
followed the faithful footsteps of the Stars.

"Until one night--it was so hot that something in me seemed to
out-beat the beating of the Stars--a great Darkness that was not Night
came from the Rim and swallowed up all things.

"I had seen it come before and had hidden my face from it like the rest
of my kin, but now my fear was too strong for hiding. Besides, who
could hide when Someone watched always? And why should I hide if I were
faithful--if I were as the Stars?

"Thus a great joy mingled with my fear, until something in me cried out
with a great longing for something that was not in me, and something
that I had not, seemed to come to me until my wand twirled faster, as
if other hands were on it, and my lips, as I cried out that I was
faithful, felt the touch of other lips upon them.

"So through the Darkness that hid the Stars while the hot wind howled
about me and flung hot earth grains in my face, I shouted to the Stars
to come down to me."

The very fire had gone now, and I strained my eyes into the shadows,
seeing nothing but endless curves as of smoke.

"And lo! One came!

"Just where the wand whirled by my hot hasty hands touched the steady
stake of wood I saw a tiny star.

"But, as I saw it, something came to me also, making me forget the
Star!

"It was Io!

"She had left her cherished one; with her breasts full of milk, she had
left the little drinker athirst; she had followed my footsteps through
the darkness to find me and lay her hand in mine.

"Io! Io! Bringer of Dreams! Io! Io! Disturber of Dreams, thou didst
come!

"And the touch of our hands and our lips together made us forget the
starshine which had come with it.

"But the shine grew and grew, so that when we looked again it was not a
Star at all, but something new and strange. Something that crept among
the dry grasses and the wilted green things, something that leaped and
laughed amid the darkness, something that sent hot arms towards us,
till I caught her in mine and fled from it, leaving the wand and the
steady stake behind.

"So we fled and fled, with the Fire which came from the Starshine
behind us always. Fled in the faithful footsteps of the Stars.... Fled
to find the Dawn!..."


                          *   *   *   *   *


There was silence; a long silence! And was that the Dawn, the gracious
Dawn!

Something, surely, all rose flecked on saffron and suffused with Light
lay before my upturned eyes.

It was an azalea blossom. But, as I rose to my feet from the springy
juniper where I had been lying, my head sheltered by the straggling
branches of the leafless bush, the dawn had come, indeed, on the far
rim of the wide plain.

And between it and me, rising from the retreating snow and the
carpeting of spring flowers, was a white vapour which, lit by the rosy
sun rays behind it, showed like smoke from a prairie fire.

But our fire was out. Only a heap of grey ashes remained, though the
sleep which had come from the juniper branches still held the sleeping
servants.

It needed a rough awakening, as rough as that which had left the
prisoning ice at the mercy of the prisoned water, to rouse them and
make them stand yawning, stretching in the dawn, avowing that
_haschish_ itself could not bring wilder dreams than those which
had been theirs that night. But was it a dream? or does the man,
hand-in-hand with the woman, still fly from the Fire which came from
the Star-shine!




                          THE GIFT OF BATTLE


"Then you recommend them both," said the mild little Commissioner,
doubtfully; he was a vacillating man, by nature lawful prey to his
superiors.

Tim O'Brien, C.I.E.--the uncoveted distinction had been, to his great
disgust, bestowed on him after a recent famine, in which his sheer
vitality had saved half a province, and earned him, rightfully, the
highest honour of the empire--removed his long Burmah cheroot from his
lips and smiled brilliantly. He was a thin brown man with a whimsical
face.

"And what would I be doing with wan of them on the Bench and the other
in the dock? For it would be that way ere a week was past. It is very
kind of the L.G. to suggest putting either Sirdar Bikrama Singh or Khân
Buktiyar Khân on the Honorary Magistracy, but he doesn't grasp that
they are hereditary enemies and have been the same for eight hundred
years. Ever since the Pathans temporarily conquered the Rajputs, in the
year av' grace 1256! So you couldn't in conscience expect wan of them
not to commit a crime if the other was to be preferred before him. Ye
see, he'd just have to kill someone. But, if ye appoint them both, the
dacencies of Court procedure and the hair-splittin' formalities of the
local Bar will conduce to dignity--to say nothing of their own sense of
justice, which, I'll go bail, is stronger than it is in most people ye
could appoint. Equity's apt to go by the board if ye've too much legal
knowledge; and they have none of that last. But I'll give them a good
Clerk of the Court and guarantee they come to no harrm. Yes, sir, I
recommend them both--to sit _in banco_."

When Tim O'Brien spoke, as he did in the last sentence, curtly and
without a trace of his usual rollicking Irish accent, his superior
officers invariably fell in with his views; it saved trouble.

So, in due course, what answers to a J.P.'s commission at home (with no
small extra powers thrown in) was sent to Sirdar Bikrama Singh, Rajput
at his castle of Nagadrug (the Snake's Hole), and also to Khân Buktiyar
Khân at his fortress of Shakingarh (the Falcon's Nest).

Both buildings had been for some centuries in a hopeless state of
dilapidation, as, from a worldly point of view, were their owners'
fortunes. But, just as the crumbling walls still commanded the wide
arid valley which lay between the rocky steeps of the sandhills on
which they stood, so the position of the two most ancient families of
Hindus and Mahomedans in the district still commanded the respect of
the whole sub-division. Of course, they were antagonistic. Had they not
been so always? But, in truth, the old story of how they came to be so
was such a very old story, that none knew the rights of it: not even
the two high-nosed, high-couraged old men, who, having in due time
succeeded to the headship of their respective families, had done as
their fathers had done; that is to say, glared at each other over their
barren fields, formulated every possible complaint they could against
their neighbour, and denied any good quality to him, his house, his
wife, his oxen, or his ass.

Yet the two had one thing in common. They were both soldiers by race.
Their sons were even now with the colours of Empire, and in their own
youth both had served John Company, and afterwards, the Queen. This
bond, however, was not one of union, but rather of discord. For the one
had belonged to the crack Hindu and the other to the crack Mahomedan
corps of the Indian army, and their respective sons naturally followed
in their fathers' footsteps. Indeed, on occasions the pair of dear old
pantaloons would appear in the uniforms of a past day, hopelessly out
of date as regards buttons and tailoring, but still worn with the
distinctive cock of the turban and swagger of high boots that had
belonged of old days and still belonged to the "rigimint."

Bikrama Singh was seated on the flat roof which had sheltered him and
his for centuries when he received the little slip of silk paper, so
beautifully engrossed, which appointed him to the Honorary Magistracy.
It was a barren honour, since he was not one of those--and there are
many--who make a stipend out of an unpaid post; but his thin old
fingers trembled a little and his eye lost the faintly blue film which
age draws between the Real and the Unreal. Whether his mind reverted at
once to his hereditary enemy--who was not mentioned in the
paper--is doubtful, but he felt it to be an honour in these miserable
days, when a moneylender had more chance of being elected to a district
council than a gentleman of parts to be chosen by the Sirkar. It was a
thousand times better than being "puffed by rabble votes to wisdom's
chair."

"It is well," he said simply, but with a superior air, to his
womenfolk--the wife and daughters and grand-daughters and
daughters-in-law and their kind who filled up the wide old house. "I
shall do my duty and punish the evil doer; notably those who do evil to
my people and my land, since true justice begins at home." And he
curled his thin grey moustache to meet his short grey whiskers and
looked fierce as an old tiger.

Over in Shakingarh also the commission met with approval. "It is well!"
said Buktiyar Khân, as he sate amongst his crowding womenfolk with a
poultice of leaves on his short beard to dye it purple. "I shall do my
duty and punish the evil doer; notably him who has done evil to my
people and my land, since that is the beginning of justice." And his
hawk's eye travelled almost unconsciously from his flat roof to that
other one far over the valley.

Yet, when they met, a few days afterwards, duly attired in their
uniforms on the threshold of _Brine sahib's_ verandah, whither they had
repaired full of courteous acknowledgments to one whom they recognised
as being at the bottom of the appointment, a faint frown came to their
old faces. But _Brine sahib_ broke it to them gently, with the graceful
tact which gained him so much confidence. Government, recognising their
many and great excellencies, had found it impossible to do otherwise
than elevate them both to the Bench, where they would doubtless remain,
as they were now, the best representatives of Hindu and Mahomedan
feeling in the district. And then Tim O'Brien made a few remarks about
the King-Emperor and devoted service which sent both old hands out in
swift stiff salute.

Doubtless it was a shock to find themselves equally honoured; but
regarding the "_in banco_," they both admitted instantly to themselves
that it was better to sit next a hereditary enemy than a stinking
scrivener or a mean moneylender. So Bikrama Singh twirled his grey
moustache and said, "It is well," and Buktiyar Khân twirled his purple
one and said the same thing.

Thereinafter they began work. The women of both houses made the first
court day a regular festival, and sent the two old men from home
dressed and scented and decorated as if for a bridal. The purple of
Buktiyar's beard was positively regal, while the points of Bikrama's
thin trembling fingers were rosy as the dawn.

They were fearsomely stately with each other, of course, but that only
added to the dignity of the Bench. An excellent Clerk of the Court had
been provided for them, and their first cases had been carefully chosen
by Tim O'Brien for their simplicity.

Thus there had seemed no possibility of friction; yet the two new
judges returned to their womenkind vaguely dissatisfied, dimly uneasy.

"The Mahomedan is no fool," remarked Bikrama Singh thoughtfully, "he
saw as quickly as I did that truth lay with the defendant, lies with
the plaintiff."

"By God's truth," admitted Buktiyar Khân grudgingly, "the Hindu is not
such a blockhead as I deemed him. He saw as quickly as I did that lies
were with the plaintiff, truth with the defendant."

It was almost intolerable; but it was true. The hereditary enemies had
agreed about something on God's earth. And as time went on this
unanimity of opinion became the most salient feature of the
newly-constituted court. They agreed about everything. Of different
race, different religion, something deeper in them than these surface
variations coincided. Their innate sense of justice, fostered by the
fact that they had both been brought up in the India of the past, that
they represented its laws, its morals, its maxims, made their judgments
identical.

"We waste time, _babu-jee_," broke in old Bikrama Singh on the lengthy
peroration of a newly passed pleader, eager to air his eloquence.
"Words are idle when facts stare you in the face. 'Who knows is silent,
he who talks knows not,' as the proverb hath it. That is enough. We are
satisfied." "_Wâh Wâh_," assented Buktiyar Khân at once, acquiescent
and regretful. "Truly, pleader-jee! thou hast said that before. Why say
it again? If sugar kills, why try poison? We are satisfied, so that is
enough."

It was more than enough for the local Bar. They went in a body to Tim
O'Brien and complained that they were not treated as lawyers should be
treated.

As usual, _Brine sahib_ met them with sympathy; but it was the sympathy
of inaction.

"I sincerely regret, gentlemen," he said softly, "that sufficient toime
is not allowed you to get all the words you have at command off your
stomachs--I beg pardon, your minds. But, ye see, the judgments of the
Bench are unfortunately quite sound; they'd be watertight against the
full forensic flood of the whole High Court Bar. So I don't see what
the divvle is to be done--do you?"

They did not. In sober truth the sense of equity in the hereditary
enemies was too strong for the lawyers. The old men were honestly
fulfilled with the desire of punishing the evil doer and praising those
who did well. Such flimsy overlays as race and tribe and caste and
family and creed did not touch their agreement on all things necessary
to salvation.

The fact was rather a pain and grief to them. It did not make them
treat each other with less stately dignity or cause them to be one whit
more friendly out of court.

Sirdar Bikrama Singh went home to his womenfolk and railed as ever
against his neighbour, and Khân Buktiyar Khân, as he rolled his little
opium pill betwixt finger and thumb, would do the same thing. But in
their heart of hearts they knew that, since a judge must always be "an
ignorant man between two wise ones" (the plaintiff and defendant), it
must be some common ground in themselves which made their views
coincide.

Meanwhile the fame of the collective wisdom grew amongst the litigants,
and indignation at its brevity increased amongst the lawyers. Tim
O'Brien, however, when the timid little Commissioner showed him a
numerously signed petition from the local Bar protesting against the
"strictly non-regulation curtailment of eloquence," only smiled
suavely. "They get at the rights of a case by congenital intuition,
sir. The High Court have upheld their judgments in the few appeals the
pleaders have cared to make; so I don't see what the div---- I mean,
sir, I don't see what is to be done--do you?"

Once again there was no answer, and Tim O'Brien, as he dashed off here
and there to institute enquiries in obedience to the cipher telegrams
which came pouring in from Calcutta by day and by night, felt comfort
in knowing that one sub-division of his district at any rate was being
well administered.

For they were troublous days for officers in charge. Someone somewhere
had been unwise enough to take the thumb-marks of a peripatetic
preacher who was suspected of being an anarchist. He was proved to be
an apostle of unrest; he was also unfortunately a man not only of
thumb-mark, but of mark. A professor, briefly, in some far-away
college. So the official who had ordered the indignity in the interests
of public order was degraded; and thereinafter, naturally, began a
campaign of would-be terrorism amongst the schoolboys and students of
the province which shattered the nerves of government.

"By the Lord who made me," ejaculated Tim O'Brien angrily, as he flung
aside the last urgent _communiquée_ from headquarters, "one would think
from that bosh, we were in danger of losing India to-morrow. Can't they
see it's only schoolboy rot, sheer daredevil schoolboy mischief, like
throwing caps under a motor car and heads you win tails I lose, you're
over last. I'll tell you what it is, Smith,"--here he addressed his
assistant, a pale-faced boy not yet recovered from the strain of
examinations--"if I was worth my salt and had the courage of my
opinions, I'd have up those boys' masters and give 'em each thirty with
the cane for not keeping their pupils in order. That 'ud stop it.
Instead of that, I have to arrest a poor child of thirteen who threw a
badly made bomb, as harmless--it turned out--as a squib. However! my
pension stares me in the face. There isn't even a House of Lords left
to which I could appeal. So here goes for the innocent victim av'
education! Inspector! arrange the arrest, please!"

Naturally, of course, as Tim O'Brien had known, every other schoolboy
in the district marched about singing patriotic songs and doing wanton
mischief to their hearts' content; thus there was quite a crop of minor
arrests.

In fact, when the Bench of Hereditary Enemies held its next sitting it
was confronted with a lengthy police case against a gang of boys whose
ages varied from ten to thirteen.

Bikrama Singh listened gravely to the details and twirled his grey
moustache. Buktiyar Khan also listened gravely and stroked his purple
beard. They listened very patiently, yet a vague impatience came to
their old faces. Then they looked in each other's eyes, and at last the
wisdom of their hearts found speech.

"Where is the teacher of these children? Bring him hither that he may
show cause for himself."

To be brief. That night the head master of the sub-divisional school
could neither sit down nor stand up comfortably. But the streets were
quiet; the boys peacefully in their beds.

"Glory be to them," cried Tim O'Brien exultantly, when the news was
brought to him. "They've more spunk than I have--so now to get them out
of the scrape."

He did his best, and that was a good deal, but the law and lies were
against him. The schoolmaster happened to be somebody's nephew by
marriage, and though there was ample evidence to prove that he had
misused his position as a Government servant, the utmost favour Tim
O'Brien could screw out of the Powers was permission for the offenders
to retire instead of being dismissed from the Honorary Magistracy.

He broke this to the old men with his usual tact, applauding them
between the lines for their courage. To his surprise and relief they
accepted the position calmly. The better the subordinate, they said,
the less likely he was to be always in agreement with others. During
their three years' work, which, in truth, had been laborious, not one
of their decisions had been upset on appeal. How many judges could say
the same! And as for head master-_jee?_ Would _Brine sahib_, if he
could, remove those thirty stripes from the miscreant's back. "Ye have
me there, _sahiban_," Tim O'Brien replied, with conviction, "I would
not; an' that's God's truth."

So the old men sent in their resignations, not altogether regretfully.
For one thing, the unanimity of their opinions had been disturbing; the
old antagonism seemed more natural. And there the matter should have
ended. Unfortunately for all, it did not. To be brief. Tim O'Brien was
asked one day, as District Officer, to sign a warrant for the arrest of
Sirdar Bikrama Singh and Khân Buktiyar Khân on a charge of assault and
battery against the head master-_jee_, who turned out to be sib to half
the local Bar.

There is no reason to go into the legal points of the incident, or to
tell of the vain efforts of Tim O'Brien to save the whilom Bench from
this last affront. An epidemic of cases against magistrates had set in,
and late one evening the District Officer started to ride over and
break the news of the coming arrest to the Hereditary Enemies.

Nagadrug stood on the nearest scarp of sand, so he went there first. He
found the old Sirdar, looking rather frail, engaged as usual in glaring
out over the arid fields to Shakingarh.

But this time all Tim O'Brien's tact did not avail for calm.
Incredulous anger, half dazed indignation, took its place. It could not
be true. What! was he, Rajput of Rajput, to be dragged to court at the
bidding of a miserable hound whom he had whipped, and rightly whipped?
Had not _Brine sahib_ himself applauded the act? Had they not done
right?--the plural pronoun came out naturally. Was not a false _guree_
God's basest creature? Did not the law say so: "He who teaches false
teaching, who kills his own soul and another, let him die." Why had
they not given the vile reptile an hundred stripes and so got rid of
him altogether.

And now were they to have a degree (decree) against them! Shinjee! It
should never be, never! never! They would not have it! The old tongue
found no difficulty in thus claiming companionship in revolt, the old
heart knew it was certain of sympathy in the ancient enmity.

Utterly sickened at a tragedy he could not prevent, the District
Officer went, tactfully as ever, to Shakingarh; only to meet with even
deeper indignation. Innocent though he knew himself to be, the
Englishman positively writhed under the contemptuous unsparing scorn of
the old Pathan. What! was the Sirkar not strong enough to protect
itself? Then let it pack up its bundle and get out of Hindustan. Let it
leave India and its problems to _his_ people--those northern folk who
had harried Bengal in the past, who, God willing, would harry it again.
Had _Brine sahib_ not heard the saying: "He who uses his public office
to betray the State commits a crime against himself, his country, and
his God." And had not the base hound betrayed the State? A thousand
times, yes! it was a pity they had not flogged him to death.

The moon rose over the low sandhills before the District Officer,
bruised and broken by the verdict of past India on the present, rode
back to the sessions bungalow, where he meant to pass the night. For
with the dawn he would go up with the police officer and so soften the
arrest of the Hereditary Enemies so far as it could be softened.

They would be let out on bail, of course, and, at the worst, a fine
more or less heavy would see them through. It was not so bad--not so
very bad.

The District Officer tried to comfort himself with such reflections; in
his heart he knew they were futile; that nothing would soften the
degradation to those two old warriors.

Nothing! unless it was the calm moonlight that lay over the arid valley
and turned the round old fortresses to dim mysterious palaces of light.

Perhaps the peace of it sank into the wearied hot old eyes that looked
out from the ancestral roofs with a new feeling of comradeship, each
for each, dulling the hereditary hatred, yet bringing with it old
memories, old tales of past enmity.

"Bring me my uniform, women!" said Bikrama Singh, suddenly. Half a
dozen weeping daughters and daughters-in-law and an old wife too blind
to see did as they were bid, and in a short time the old man stood
arrayed as for a bridal, his sword buckled tight to his bowed back.
"And the shield, women--the shield of my fathers that hangs in the
entry. I shall need it, too!"

Over in Shakingarh, Buktiyar Khân, impelled likewise by those memories
of the past, that hatred of the present, had donned his uniform
likewise; and so the moonlight shone on cold steel and damascened gold
as, silently obeying some inward community of thought, the two old men
started silently alone, leaving all behind them, to seek for Peace in
their own way.

Steadily over the arid fields, nearer and nearer to each other. The
fields had been cut and carried; the harvest was over; it was nigh time
to plough again for a fresh crop----

Of what?

"The Peace of the Unknown be upon you, oh, mine enemy," said Bikrama
Singh, when at long last they stood face to face in the open.

"And the Peace of the Most Mighty be on you, my foe," answered Buktiyar
Khân.

So for a moment there was silence. Then the Rajput spoke, his old voice
full of fire, full of vibration.

"In the old days to which we belong, oh, Mahomedan! did brave men wait
for Fate?"

"They did not wait, oh, Hindu," came the answer. "When brave men found
sickness or dishonour before them: when there was no longer hope of
victory: when that which lay ahead was hateful, and they left sons to
carry on the race, did not the ancestors of my race claim of their
enemies the glorious gift of battle?"

"They did so claim it, oh, Bikrama Singh! Dost claim it now!"

The reply, quick, vibrant, rang through the moonlight; a veritable
challenge.

"Yea, Pathan--robber! thief! I claim it now! _Jug-dân, Jug-dân_--the
Gift of Battle to the Death."

"Take it, pig of an idolator! Jug-dân, Jug-dân--the Gift of Battle!"

The still, hot air became full of faint chinkings, as buckles were
settled straight, scabbards thrown aside. Then there was an instance
silence as the two old warriors faced each other.

"Art ready ... friend?" The question came softly.

"Yea! I am ready ... friend!" The reply was almost a caress.

So, with a quick clash of sword on sword, youth and health and strength
came back to the Hereditary Enemies.


                          *   *   *   *   *


It matters little if the combat ended in quarter of an hour, half an
hour, or an hour; whether Bikrama Singh or Buktiyar Khân got in the
first blow. The moon shone peacefully on the Gift of Battle. She still
hung a white shield on the grey skies of dawn when Tim O'Brien and the
police officer, coming to do their disagreeable duty, found the two old
men lying stone dead within swords' thrust of each other on the
stubble.

"They are really an incomprehensible lot," said the police officer,
almost mournfully; "why the deuce should the two poor old buffers come
out and kill each other, as presumably they have----"

Tim O'Brien smiled a grim smile. "You haven't heard, I suppose--why
should ye--of what they call the Gift of Battle! Well! I have. It's an
ould Rajput custom by which a man who feared he'd die in his bed or be
put to it any way by any other stupid inept limitations, could claim a
decent death from his nearest foe."

"Well! they've done it. That's all, and small blame to them."

"By God who made me, it's a protest with a vengeance. But the worst of
it is, the Government won't see it and I can't explain it. Cipher
telegrams won't run to it So ... peace be with you, friends!"




                         THE VALUE OF A VOTE

                          A SKETCH FROM LIFE


He was an old man; a very old man. A Syyed--that is, a Mahomedan who
claims direct descent from the prophet--by trade a Yunani hakeem, or
physician according to the Grecian system, introduced to India,
doubtless, by Alexander the Great. He had a little sort of shop, close
to the principal gate of the city, where he was in touch with all those
who, with its ship the camel, went out, or came back from the desert
beyond, and with all strangers and sojourners in the land. So all day
and every day you might see wearied travellers resting on the hard
wooden platform set in a dark archway, of which his shop consisted,
drinking out of green glass tumblers some restorative sherbet of things
hot or things cold, things dry or things wet, while he showed dimly in
the background, a visionary outline of long grey beard and high white
turban. In this way he heard a good deal of what was going on both
inside and outside the city, and as he was of the old school of the
absolutely loyal outspoken Mahomedan, who, while he holds our rule to
be inferior to that of his own faith, emphatically believes it to be
superior to all others, I used often to pause in riding into or out of
the city for a chat with the old man; seldom without benefit to myself.
One morning--I remember it so well!--the _gram_ fields outside the city
were literally drenched with dew, making the fine tufts look like
diamond plumes, amongst which the wealth of tiny purple blue pea
blossom showed like a sowing of sapphires--I found him sitting with a
troubled look on his high, wrinkled forehead, peering through his horn
spectacles at a blue printed paper.

A patient was snoring contentedly on the boards, with, tucked into the
hollow of his neck, a hard roly-poly bolster which made me ache to look
at. Nothing brings home to one the impossibility of any Western judging
what is, or is not pleasant or convenient to an Eastern more than the
ordinary rolling pin, two feet by six inches, stuffed hard with cotton
wool, which the latter habitually uses as a pillow. The sight of it
makes a Western neck feel stiff.

I recognised the paper at once. We were then in the throes of "Local
Self Government," and a violent effort was being made to induce this
little far-away town, inhabited for the most part by Pathans (exiled
these centuries back from northern wilds to the Indian plain) to elect
a Municipal Committee.

I had spent the better part of the day before in explaining to various
Rais'es or honourable gentlemen of the city, that no insult was
intended by asking them to put themselves up to auction as it were by
the votes of their fellow citizens, instead of being discreetly and as
ever nominated to the office of Councillor by the "hated alien." A few
had gravely and dutifully given in to this new and quite
incomprehensible fad of the constituted authorities, others had
hesitated, but one, a fiery old Khân Bahadur, who was a retired
risseldar from one of our crack native cavalry regiments, had sworn
with many oaths that never would he take office from, amongst others,
the perjured vote of Gunpat-Lal, pleader, who belonged to his ward, and
whose evil, eloquent tongue had deliberately diddled him out of
ancestral rights in a poppy field in the Huzoor's own court. No! He had
served the Sirkar with distinction, he had, with his own hands, nearly
killed an agitator he had found in the lines; nay, more! he had
absolutely sent his daughter to school to please the _sahib logue_; but
_this_ was too much. It had been all I could do to prevent the
hot-tempered old soldier from giving up the sword of honour with which
he had been presented on retirement, as a signal of final rupture with
the Government.

So, as I say, I recognised the blue paper at once as one of many voting
papers which had been sent out for marking and return; for in these out
of the way places in those days, the secret ballot-box was not the best
blessing of the world, as it is now. And my old friend the hakeem was,
I knew, on the Aga Khân's ward.

"What have you got to do with it?" I echoed, in reply to an anxious
question. "Why, put a mark against the Aga Khân's name and give it back
whence it came."

He salaamed profoundly. "Huzoor! that was the settled determination of
this slave, thus combining new duties with old--which is the philosophy
of faithful life; but, being called in last night to an indigestion in
his house, which I combatted with burnt almonds, he told me that if I
so much as went near his honourable name with my stylus, I should cease
to be physician-in-ordinary to his household. And, father and son, we
have been physicians to the Aga Khân ever since our fathers followed
his fathers from Ghazni in that capacity with the Great Mahomed--on
whom be peace."

"Then mark one of the other names--which you choose, and send it in," I
replied, taking no notice of the scandalous attempt at coercion on the
old Aga Khân's part.

A still more profound salaam was the answer. "That also would have
occurred to me," came the suave old voice, "but that the Aga Khân said,
with oaths, that if I so much as made a chance blot on this cursed
paper against any of the names thereon, I should be cast for life from
his honourable company."

I felt quite nettled. Her Majesty's lieges must not be intimidated in
this fashion. "Well! you must think of the person whom you consider
most fitted to fulfil all the many duties which will devolve on him,
and put down his name," I said, for in these days when we really wished
to get at the wishes of the people, we were not so strict about
nominations and proposings and secondings as we are now, "and I will
speak again to the Khân Bahadur and see if I cannot induce him to
stand." (I meant to do so by threats of exposure for using force to Her
Majesty's lieges!)

As I rode off, my horse picking its way through the piles of melons,
the bags of corn, the jars of milk, the nets of pottery and all the
_olla podrida_ of trivial daily merchandise which finds pause for a few
minutes about an active gate at dawn time, the patient sat up straight
from his backboard and yawned, then asked for another violet drink. But
the hakeem was absorbed in the problem of voting.

I happened that day to have business in the city in the evening also,
but I entered by another gate, so that the sun was nigh setting when,
on my homeward way, I saw my old friend the Yunani hakeem sitting with
his pile of little medicine bottles and tiny earthenware goglets of
pills and ointments beside him.

He was pounding away at something in a minute jade mortar and looked no
longer disturbed, but weary utterly.

"Have you settled that knotty point, hakeem sahib?" I asked.

He gave a sigh of relief, but pounded away faster than ever. "I give
God thanks I have been led into the way of wisdom," he replied, "else
would I be harried, indeed! Never, within the memory of man, have so
many gentlemen of rank been sick as during this day. I am but now
compounding the 'Thirty-six-ingredient-drug' for one honourable house,
and have but just finished the 'Four-great-things' for another. 'Tis
anxiety about the elections, methinks, for they talk of nothing else.
Hardly had your Honour left this morning, than Gunpat-Lal sent to say
he had a belly-ache which his idolatrous miracle-monger could not
touch. I had it away in half an hour with cucumber and lemon juice.
Cold things to cold. And Lala-ji full of compliments and regrets that
the Aga Sahib would not be elected." A faintly worried air crept over
the high old face.

"Did he ask you to give him your vote?" I enquired, with a sinking at
my heart.

"Yea!" replied the Yunani hakeem cheerfully, "and offered me five
rupees for it."

Ye Gods above! How soon political corruption seizes on the innocent, I
thought.

"But others have offered more," continued the old man, with a certain
self-satisfaction. Then his face clouded. "Yonder pasty-faced
knock-kneed student, who calls himself 'Hedditerlile--jackdaw'" (Editor
Loyal Objector) "told me it was his by right, since he and his like were
Hindustan. But I told the lad God had ordained otherwise--for look you,
Huzoor, we Mussalmans came from the north many long years before the
_sahib-logue_ came from the west. So I let him talk, having, by God's
mercy, come to a decision."

"What is that, hakeem-ji?" I asked, curious to know what had influenced
the old man.

He salaamed quite simply. "The Huzoor bade me think who could best do
the work, so I decided to vote for him. He is noble, and he knows what
has to be done. He knows _santation_ and _inspekshon-conservance_. Also
_new-tense_, and _karl-ra-pre-kar-sons_, and"--he added, with the most
beautiful supplementary salaam of pure flattery--"all other noble arts
and philosophies." It quite gave me a pang to tell him that this scheme
of his would not work. That I was _ex officio_ president of the
Municipal Committee, and thus beyond the reach of voters.

His face was illumined by a vast relief even amidst his perplexities.

"That is as it should be," he said simply. "The Sirkar then, has not,
as they say, quite lost its head; the Huzoor retains it still. But what
am I to do?"

I left him looking the picture of woe, absolutely unheeding of two
patient travellers who had been awaiting my departure with that calm
stolid disregard of the passing hour which brings with it to the
Western such a sense of personal grievance; whereas to the Eastern it
only emphasises his trust in Providence by proving the omnipotence of
Fate.

Next morning, however, the whole aspect of affairs had been changed.
Hakeem-ji was alert, spry, surrounded by quite a congregation of
would-be patients, to whom he was giving out his _dicta_ with quite a
lordly air.

There was no need to ask him if he had settled his vexed question. That
was apparent. I simply asked him what he had done about the paper.

"Huzoor," he said again, with that lucid candour which--was so marked a
feature of the man himself, "the Lord mercifully directed me. Therefore
I ate it, and it hath done me much good."

"Ate it?" I echoed. "You don't mean to say----"

"Huzoor!" he interrupted cheerfully, "this is how it was. After your
Honour left, it was the time of evening prayer. So I went, after my
usual custom, to the House of God, to await the cry of the Muazzim and
prepare myself for the presence of the Most High by the necessary
ablutions. And as I sat squatted on the edge of the Pool of
Purification, my hands in the cool water, I felt as if naught could
cleanse me from that accursed paper that lay folded in my breast. So I
cried in my heart to the prophet that he should show me a way, and then
in one moment I saw where the error lay. I was arrogating to myself
decisions that should be left to the Almighty. So I did what I do ever
when life and death are at issue; when even the mighty skill of
medicine has to stand on one side and do nothing.

"I took my stylus, and I wrote all over that paper the attributes
of the Most High--His mercy, His truth, His wisdom, His great
loving-kindness. And then, Huzoor, I crushed it into the form of a
bolus, covered it with silver foil, and swallowed it as a pill.

"It hath done me much good. I am now free from anxiety. The decision of
all things rests with the Most Mighty."




                        THE SALT OF THE EARTH


"The Huzoor is the salt of the earth," said Hoshyari Mull,
submissively. He had been educated, he asserted, at a mission school:
thus the words of Scripture came handy to him. So also did a variety of
other things.

"And you are the biggest scoundrel unhung. I know that, though I can't
find you out--yet," retorted the Boy, almost savagely. He was really a
Boy, a round-faced, fresh-coloured English Boy, though his years
numbered twenty-four, and he was a full-blown Salt Patrol on the Great
Customs Hedge, which, in the 'fifties and 'sixties, still stretched
between the river Indus, as it flows to the Arabian Sea, and the
Mahanuddi river that finds its way to the Bay of Bengal; in other
words, stretched for fifteen hundred miles across the vast continent of
India. It was a strange, weird barrier, this vast hedge of cactus and
thorny acacia, of prickly palms, and still more prickly agaves, that
thrust out their spiked swords boldly from a buckler of spine-set
thicket. It was fully fourteen feet high, and of its width one could
only guess, in passing through the break, every ten miles or so, where
some first-class road claimed a long passage-way through it. Here it
was that the Patrols had their bungalows, and it was at one of these
that the Boy lived. It was a very important post, because it was, so to
speak, the gateway between the South-West and the North-East; that is
to say, between Bombay and the Central Provinces, and Delhi, Oude,
Bengal. Then, lying as it did, right in the Rajputana Desert, with no
other roadway within twenty miles of it on either side, it needed a
sharp look out all along the line to prevent isolated attempts at
smuggling. But the Boy was quick at his work, and spent all his
youthful energy in preserving the intactness of his Customs Hedge. The
life, however, was as strange and weird as was the barrier. Absolute
loneliness, absolute isolation. For long months together not one word
of your mother-tongue. With luck, a weekly post. No books, no
newspapers, no civilisation of any kind. On the other hand there was
endless sport, unfailing interest for those who loved wild things. And
the Boy had never been one for books. Harrow had left him, one may say,
uncontaminated by them; examinations had passed him by; so, though both
his grandfathers had been high Indian officials, he had drifted
naturally into the Salt Department; the last refuge, not of the
incompetent, but the unlearned. There, to be a man was all that was
asked of you. Without manhood the salt had lost its savour; there was
no possibility of salting it with all the 'ologies in existence.

Hoshyari Mull paused in his deft winding-on of the Huzoor's putties, to
say submissively, "The Salt of the Earth speaks truth." Whereat the Boy
laughed.

He and Hoshyari were at once friends and enemies. The latter was chief
native supervisor, a man of about forty, above middle height, smooth
faced and lissome. There was nothing, the Boy soon found out, which he
could not do; which, in fact, he did not do. An excellent accountant,
he was also an excellent shot. If he knew, or said he knew, every
smuggler of salt between Attock and Cuttack, he also knew every bird
and beast and butterfly by name, and could tell you the habits of all
and sundry. He knew the history of Ancient India by heart, and could
pour forth legend and tale by the yard. He was a magnificent swordsman,
and could teach the Boy, who had learnt singlestick, many cuts and
thrusts.

In short, he was all things to the Boy; without him, life in the Patrol
bungalow would, indeed, have lost its savour. And yet the Boy
mistrusted him, for no reason, except vaguely that he was too clever by
half. Hoshyari, for his part, regarded the Boy as he had regarded no
other master. He had been, as it were, _impresario_ of amusement to
several Huzoors of the ordinary type. This one was different. This one
was as the Angels of God. That is how Hoshyari put it to himself, and,
on the whole, it was a sufficiently comprehensive description, and led
to thoroughly wholesome treatment. Here was no necessity for _itr_ of
rose, no distilled waters of any description, save the dew of heaven,
as it gathered on the gram fields where the black buck lay, or hung
like a diamond on a cactus flower over which some rare butterfly
hovered.

But there was no dew this hot May dawn, when Hoshyari Mull, with the
deftness of an expert, was putting the woollen bandages on the Huzoor's
long legs. It was not his work; but then half the things he did were
not that. "I thought you were a Brahman; but I don't believe you are
even a Hindu," the Boy had said scornfully to him one day, when,
foraging for breakfast in a village, Hoshyari had come back,
triumphantly, with half a dozen eggs in his high caste hand. Hoshyari
had smiled. "I am a Srimali Brahman, Huzoor," he had replied
tolerantly. "The Maharajah of Jaipur salaams to me. There are none here
in the wilderness able to say Hoshyari hath defiled himself."

So he made no ado about this putting on of putties. They were, as he
had proved to the Boy, the best of all protection against snake bite.
With them on you might almost venture on trying to find a gap in the
Great Salt Hedge; without them it was madness; for is not the prickly
pear called in the vernaculars, _naga-pan_, or serpent shelter? And on
these hot May mornings, as well as at noontide, were there not along
the Customs line many pairs of watching, unwinking eyes lying in wait
for the unwary, beside those of the fourteen thousand humans who
patrolled its long length day and night?

Truly there were. As they cantered along it, after passing through the
gateway, many a faint rustle among the colocynth apples at its base
told of death among the flowers. For the Hedge was at its blossom time.
Thorny salmon-coloured capers began it, with here and there a yellow
cactus bloom, or, perhaps, a rare red one, on whose stems the wild
cochineal insect lay like tiny spots of blood. Above it, a wilderness
of these same cactus flowers, big as a tea cup, primrose within, the
white stamens ranged sedately round the whiter star-pistil; then yellow
without, shading to purple. Above them the violet-scented puff-balls of
the thorny mimosa, with every now and again a great lance of aloe
blossom, brown and white, all set with flower bells.

And above all, butterflies, dragon flies, moths, flitting in myriads.
"That is the gap, Huzoor, where the ill-begotten hound of a Poorbeah
managed to smuggle in a back-load of salt last week. He was going to
carry it all the way to Kashi (Benares) he said. As the Salt of the
Earth will see, it is now thoroughly mended," remarked Hoshyari, with a
debonair smile of superiority.

The Boy frowned. There was too much, to his liking, of these petty
discoveries. That long line of Hedge had not been planted, was not kept
up, to prevent the smuggling of a poor back-load of salt. He looked at
Hoshyari with dissatisfaction in his face.

"When are we going to find something worth finding out?" he asked
cavalierly.

"If it is God's will, before long, Huzoor," was the reply, and there
was a curious undertone of certainty about it. "Look, my lord! yonder
are the buck. They are on the move already; we must hasten."

They were off at a gallop, rifles crossed on the saddle bow, over the
hard white _putt_ ground that was interspersed by ribbed drifts of fine
white sand. Hoshyari sate his horse like an Englishman. Indeed, the
Boy, looking at him, used often to think that, barring his colour, he
seemed of kindred race; as, in truth, he was, since the Srimali Brahman
is Aryan of the Aryans. There was, in fact, only that vague distrust to
keep them apart; and that always vanished before sport.

It was a hot day, they followed the buck far, then, the Boy having a
sudden headache from the sun, paused by Hoshyari's advice at some
wandering goatherd's thatch for a hearth-baked cake, a drink of milk,
and a rest till noon should have passed.

A very hot day; and the Boy rested in the shade of _jund_ tree on a
string bed, and slept profoundly.

When he woke, the shadows were lengthening, and Hoshyari, squatted on
the ground beside him, had a new look on his face; a look of anxiety
mingled with satisfaction.

"Huzoor!" he said, "I have news for you! What I have always prophesied,
what I have always told you would happen if the Sirkar were not more
careful, has come to pass. The native troops in Meerut have mutinied;
they have gone to Delhi and murdered the _Sahib-logue_. I rode back
to the depôt while the Salt of the Earth slept, to see all was right,
and--and I heard it at the gate."

"At the gate," echoed the Boy, still stupid with sleep. "Who brought
the news--has the post come in?"

Hoshyari's face was a study. He must break this thing gently to the
Boy, who was a full-blown Salt Patrol, or he would see red, try to kill
and be killed. And that must not be; quite a pang at the very thought
shot through heart and brain, making him realise that this Boy of an
alien race had grown dear to him.

"The post had not come in, Salt of the Earth," he said evasively. "Men
brought it from the South."

"The South," echoed the Boy again, with a relieved yawn; "then it's a
lie. How could they know, if we didn't?"

How? Hoshyari could have answered that question easily; he knew the
strange wordless rapidity with which news travels in India; in Delhi
to-day, in Peshawur to-morrow. A mystery that has passed undiscovered
with the coming of telegraphs and telephones that do it for pennies and
twopences.

Yes! he knew, but his task was to prevent this Angel of God from
putting his life into the hands of men who, at best, were devils; as he
was, himself, at bottom. He knew that also. Most men with brains did.

"It is not a lie, Huzoor," he said, simply. "These men are mutineers
themselves. They are going to join those at Delhi, murdering all the
Sahibs they can on the way."

He had laid his plan while the Salt of the Earth slept, and watched the
effect of his words upon the Boy narrowly; hoping that even the defence
of a post might take second place before the duty of giving a warning--
and that would mean being out of danger--for the time.

The Boy's face blanched. He had been away to the nearest station, fifty
miles off, for a three days' holiday at Christmas, and the remembrance
of a laughing girl with blue eyes came back to him now with a rush.
Hoshyari saw his chance, and went on----

"The plans were laid for later on, Huzoor, so they are taken by
surprise themselves; yet it gives them advantage also, since everywhere
the Sahibs are taken by surprise also; if only they had been prepared
it might be different."

The cunning told; the Boy's face hardened into thought. Fifty miles on,
along the road. He might do it.

"When did they come in? I suppose they forced the guard," he added, his
voice almost breaking in its resentment.

"About noon, Huzoor," came the wily tones. "They were wearied out."

So much the better; they would not start, likely, till just before dawn
next day. If he could give warning. He rose and looked round for his
horse.

Hoshyari rose also. "The Salt of the Earth cannot ride through the
gate," he said--the time for dissuasion had come now. "He will only be
killed in the attempt."

The Boy rounded on him instantly. "Didn't I always tell you you were
the greatest scoundrel unhung? Now I've found you out, you skunk!"

"Has this slave not always said the Huzoor was as the Salt of the
Earth," came the instant rapid reply. "My lord, listen! This is the
Hand of Fate. Wise men bow to it. You are here, safe, alone, none know
of you. Come with this slave and he will save you ..."

"D--n you, you scoundrel," shouted the Boy blindly, and fumbled for the
stirrups.

"Huzoor! that is useless!" came Hoshyari's voice, quiet now; all
entreaty gone. In its place almost command. "You cannot force the
barrier. Where we had one man, they have ten."

"I will try," muttered the Boy, doggedly. "I can but try."

"The Huzoor can do better," said Hoshyari. "He can come with me. I know
a way."

Even in his excitement the full meaning of this came home to the Boy.

"You know?" he echoed under his breath, "didn't I always say you were
the greatest scoundrel unhung?"

"And the Huzoor is the Salt of the Earth," came the unfailing reply.

The rapid Indian dusk was falling as they made their way on foot to a
village which, though almost exactly opposite the barrier, still lay
the orthodox half mile from the Hedge, within which, by rule of the
Salt Department, no building might be erected. The Boy was now in
native dress, for Hoshyari had utilised the interval of time in
arranging for the former's midnight ride of warning.

In reporting on these arrangements, he had given scope to his
imagination as to their difficulty. In reality, he had only had to ride
up to the barrier, give the password, and enter, to be welcomed as one
of the party within. Whether he was at heart one of them, or whether,
all things considered, his cleverness had come to the conclusion that
it was best for his purpose to fall in with their mood for the time
being, is uncertain; but that purpose was clear, namely, to get the Boy
out of the danger zone if he could. So he raised no objection to the
looting of the Salt Patrol's bungalow--the little Salt Patrol who,
doubtless, had run away into the jungle in the hope of escape, being
but a mere boy--but the office must be let alone. There must be no
tampering with books and registers, since he, Hoshyari Mull, Srimali
Brahman, whose father--God rest him--had been Prime Minister to a
Prince, was accountable for them to the powers that be--be they John
Company or the Badshah. Therefore the doors must be locked and the keys
given to him. And that Kathyawar mare in the stable was his; so that
was an end of it. Whoever laid hands on the beast would rue the deed.
But all this was past: now he had to get the Boy through the Hedge,
incredible though it seemed. "The furthermost house in the village is
mine, Huzoor," said Hoshyari, gravely. "It is thence that, in disguise,
I penetrate the evil designs of the smugglers."

The Boy ground his teeth, and was silent. He knew what he would say;
but this was not the time to say it; this was the time to warn his
countrymen.

They found the tiny hamlet deserted; as all knew, half India fled
before the mutineers.

"It is as well," remarked Hoshyari, hardily, "since they might talk,
though none know of the secret save this slave and Suchet Singh, the
waiting--house keeper."

But as they came upon what was called the waiting-house, since here
salt that arrived without proper papers, or that failed to pay the
toll, was held up, they found Suchet Singh the Sikh lying dead at his
post. The Boy ground his teeth again. So would he be lying but for his
desire not only to die, but to do.

"Look sharp, will you," he said, roughly, to his companion, "we lose
time. The moon will be up ere long."

Hoshyari led the way across a yard; an ordinary village house yard with
a row of three or four native corn granaries standing against one wall.
These are huge basketwork erections, each taller than a man, in shape
not unlike a big pickle bottle, fixed to the ground and carefully
plastered over with mud and cow dung.

"They are all full," said Hoshyari, with a curious smile, as he passed
one; and, sure enough, as he lifted the little sliding door at the
bottom, a tiny moraine of wheat fell forward in the half light. But the
next instant, with a dexterous twist of his hand, the whole _kothe_
slid round as on a pivot, disclosing a round well-like hole.

"We shall need a light," said Hoshyari in a matter-of-fact tone, and
produced a tinder box and a candle from a niche at his feet.

Once again the Boy ground his teeth. So this was the way, was it? and
all the time this biggest scoundrel that ever went unhung was
discovering miserable back-loads of smuggling! Words had failed him
long since; now thought failed him also; he plodded on, his head bent,
down the narrow subterranean passage that scarcely showed in the
flickering candle light.

But here, surely, there was less gloom and more room. He stood upright
and glanced above him. A star showed through a tangle of branches.

"We are under the Great Hedge, Huzoor," said Hoshyari, deferentially,
in answer to his look. "The passage needed air, and we also required to
have a store closer at hand." He held up the light, and it fell faintly
on rows on rows of sacks of salt ranged round a central space. "It is
quite light here in the daytime, Huzoor," he went on cheerfully.
"Sometimes the sun actually shines in; and the snakes do not fall down
now that we have put a net across the opening."

So this was one of the things concealed in the great width of the
Hedge. Who would have dreamt of it? Who _could_ have dreamt it?
Something of the comicality of the whole affair was beginning to filter
into the Boy's brain; he caught himself wondering where the passage
ended--under his bed, maybe!

It was almost as bad. "We are there, Huzoor," said Hoshyari, mounting
some steep steps, and then swung a panel blocking the passage
backwards. It had shelves on it, and books. He heard the turning of a
key, he followed his leader, and the next minute stood in the growing
light which presages a rising moon, inside the office room, looking
stupidly at what lay behind him; only a cupboard in the mud wall where
the ledgers were kept.

Dazed as he was, he yet realised partly how it was done. The wall must
be thicker than it seemed--twice, three times, perhaps four times as
thick--but who would have dreamed! And for the rest? He looked at
Hoshyari defiantly--the latter answered in words.

"It was quite easy, Huzoor," he replied, lightly. "We could always
replace salt that was taken from the Government storehouse next door
with salt from our storehouse yonder. And that paid nothing."

The Boy gave a little gasp. But there was no time for that sort of
thing now. The Kathyawar mare was waiting, the moon would be up in ten
minutes or so, and he must be beyond sight of the chattering devils he
could hear outside before them; but perhaps--yes! perhaps he might be
able to come back--to come back and give these fellows their deserts.

"I'll pay you out yet--you're the greatest scoundrel unhung," he said,
thickly, as Hoshyari held the stirrup for him.

"And the Huzoor is the Salt of the Earth," came the urbane reply.

After that there was silence on the far side of the office for five
minutes--for ten minutes. Then, faint and far, only to be heard of an
anxious listener, came the sound of a horse's hoofs as it was let into
its stride.

The Huzoor had got through the picket, and if he only remembered
instructions, might be considered safe for those fifty miles across
country. Hoshyari drew a breath of relief, shut the door, and lay down
placidly to sleep, feeling he had done his best. It is true he had sent
the Angel of God on a wild goose chase; for, briefly, the mutineers had
gone on straight that morning, only leaving a strong guard at the gate
to keep it until the second body of rebels should come in next day.

So by this time, doubtless, the fate of Englishmen--aye, and every
Englishwoman, too, on the route to Delhi must have been settled. But
the ride would keep the Salt of the Earth out of danger, since it
prevented him from doing rash things; which otherwise he was sure to
have done; for what was the use of losing one's life in fighting two to
a hundred; still less if it were only one. And these things were on the
knees of the Gods. No! there was no use, especially when the store
ammunition was in the hands of the enemy and you had expended your
pouch full on black buck. The Huzoor was best away. With luck he would
only find the cold ashes of outbreak. The hurricane of revolt would
have spent itself, for, after all, it was only the soldiers who would
mutiny. The rabble in the towns might follow suit; but there was safety
yet in the country.

So he fell asleep.

When he woke it was broad daylight. Daylight? Why, it must be nigh on
noon. He stepped to the door and looked through the panes. Aye! the
sentry in the verandah was eating his bread. And the other detachment
had come in. The courtyard was crowded with men. So much the better,
for they would only rest during the heat of the day, and go on at
sundown. Thus there would be peace before the Salt of the Earth could
possibly return--if he did return; but once away from his post he
would, most likely, and wisely, make for security to the north.

Meanwhile, it was time for him to think of himself. There was gold in
the safe yonder, and it would be folly to leave it to new masters who
had no more right to it than he. He went over to it, set the iron door
open and began to gather together what he found.

The room was very still, but on the one side came the clamour of the
newly-arrived rebels. He gave one last glance at them through the
closed door, then slipped into the verandah on the other side. Then he
paused before a dusty swaying figure that, throwing up its arms as it
saw him, came at him like a wild beast. It was a time for calm--with
those men in the courtyard, a time of calm for both!

He stood back a step and said, quietly, "So you have returned--Salt of
the Earth."

The Boy seemed for an instant dazed, then a loud, reckless laugh rang
out, "Come back! Yes! I've come back to kill you, you d--d scoundrel.
I've come back as I said I'd come."

"I saved the Huzoor's life," interrupted Hoshyari, quietly, "and I'll
save it again, if he will not speak so loud; the sentry will hear, and
then----"

"Let him hear--I'll have time to kill you first," went on the Boy,
blindly; for all that he lowered his voice; the instinct of belief in
Hoshyari's wisdom was strong.

"The Huzoor would not have time," whispered the latter, blandly. "I am
no fool at wrestling, as he knows; and he knows also that I tried to
save him."

There was a sudden unexpected appeal in the tone which surprised even
the man himself. He could have cried over this Angel of God who refused
to be saved.

The Boy looked at him with dry hot eyes; there were no tears there--he
had seen too many horrors for that. And he had ridden all night, all
day, till the Kathyawar mare had dropped with him; then he had stumbled
on as best he might, intent on revenge. And now the sight of Hoshyari
was as the sight of a friend's face: it brought back the memory of so
many jolly times they had had together. And what he said was true: the
man had tried to save him.

He had to bolster up his anger. "It--it's the other thing you've got to
answer for, you--you thief."

Hoshyari's eyes gleamed. "Don't call me that again, Huzoor. I am no
thief. I was only--cleverer than other folk."

"I'll call you it ten times over if I choose. Thief! mean, miserable,
petty thief."

There was something more savage in the whispered quarrel than if the
two had been shouting at each other, and Hoshyari's gasp of rage fell
on absolute silence, as, breathing hard, they looked at each other.

Then the Boy passed his hand wearily over his forehead. "No!" he said.
"I can't--you're right--I can't kill you like a dog--we must fight it
out--there are foils or swords somewhere--foils with the buttons
off--where are they?"

His dependence on the elder man showed in his helplessness; he asked as
a child might have asked.

There was almost a sob in his throat, but the voice which answered was
firm.

"They are on the wall, Huzoor; but we cannot fight here; the sentry
would hear, and----"

"D--n the sentry," said the Boy again, helplessly. "What can we do?"

Hoshyari thought for a moment. "There is light enough in the storehouse
under the Great Hedge----" he began.

The Boy leapt up, fire in his eyes. "By God in heaven, it shall be
there--and, mind you, it's to the death, you cursed smuggler."

"To the death, Salt of the Earth." A minute later the false back to the
record cupboard swung to its lock with a click, and the office was
empty.


                          *   *   *   *   *


The cactus flowers bloomed and faded; the violet-scented mimosa
puff-balls fell in gold showers on the green lobes, the aloe bells
withered in silence, the waiting, watching eyes waited and watched in
vain. If the snakes, as they slid over the netting-covered round hole
in the thickness of the great Salt Hedge, had looked down into the
widening sunlit circle below them, what would they have seen?

Who knows, since Suchet Singh the Sikh lay dead at his post.




                         AN APPRECIATED RUPEE


She was a poor Mahomedan widow, and lived in an unconceivable sort of
burrow under the tall winding stair of a big tenement house, which in
its turn was hidden away in a long, winding, sunless alley. The stair
centred round a sort of shaft, barred at each storey by iron gratings,
narrow enough to admit of refuse being thrown down--the shaft being,
briefly, the rubbish shoot of the building, so that old Maimuna--who
seldom left her seclusion till the evening--had, in passing to and fro,
to step over quite a pile of radish parings, cauliflower stalks, fluff,
rags--a whole day's sweepings and leavings of the folk higher up in the
world than she.

And even when she reached the odd-shaped cell of a place, whose only
furniture consisted of a rickety bed with string--halt in two of its
emaciated legs, a low stool and a spinning wheel, she was not free from
her neighbours' off-scourings; for down the wall beside the low
latticed window, where, perforce, she had to set her spinning wheel,
crept a slimy black streak of sewage from above, which smelt horribly,
on its way to join the open drain in the middle of the alley. Yet here
Maimuna Begam, Patha-ni from Kasur, had lived for fifteen years of
childless widowhood; lived far away from her home and people, too poor
to rejoin them, too ignorant to hold her own among strangers. For she
had been that most intolerable of interlopers--the wife of a man's old
age. Not a suitable wife bringing a dower into the family; but one who,
as a widow, might--unless the other heirs took active measures to
prevent it--claim her portion of one-sixth for life. A wife, too,
without a pretence of any position save that of the strictest
seclusion; a seclusion so untouched by modern latitude as to be in
itself second-rate. Without good looks also, and married simply and
solely because old Jehan Latif had fancied some quail curry which he
had eaten when business called him to Kasur, and, as the best way of
securing repetition of the delicacy, had married the compounder and
carried her back to Lucknow; where, to tell truth, he found more
attractions in the cook than he had anticipated when he paid a
good round sum for his middle-aged bride. For Maimuna was a good
woman--kindly, gentle, pious--who had lived discreetly in her father's
house, and helped to cook quail curry for that somewhat dissolute old
swashbuckler ever since, as a girl of twelve, her husband had died
before she had even seen him.

So, while she pounded the spices and boned the quails (since that was
one of the refinements of the _bonne-bouche_) for old Jehan Latif,
Maimuna used sometimes to think, with a kind of wondering regret, what
life would have been like if the husband of her youth had not died of
the measles; but, being conscientious, she never allowed the tears to
drop into the quail curry!

It was no carelessness of hers, therefore, which led to fat Jehan Latif
falling into a fit shortly after partaking of his favourite dish, which
for ten years she had dutifully prepared for him. None-the-less, his
heirs (who had had all these years in which to cook their accounts of
the matter) treated her as if it were. There is no need to enter into
details. Those who know India know how unscrupulous heirs can oppress a
strange lone woman--ignorant, secluded; a woman whose position as wife
has from the first been cavilled at, resented, impugned. It is
sufficient to say that Maimuna, after a few feeble protests, found
herself in the little cell under the stairs, earning a few farthings by
her spinning wheel, and thankful that her great skill at it kept her
from that last resort of deserted womanhood in India--the quern. Even
so, it was hard at times to wait till there was sufficient thread in
the percentage she got back for her spinning, to make it worth while
for the merchant to buy it from her, or for her to break in, by a cash
transaction, on the curious succession of cotton bought, and thread
returned, without a coin changing hands. And this winter it was harder
than ever, for the unusual cold made her fingers stiff, and sent
shoots of rheumatism up her arm as she sat spinning in the ray of light
which came in with the smell.

It was very cold indeed that New Year's afternoon, and Maimuna felt
more than usually down-hearted; for there had been a death upstairs,
and she knew that the stamping and shufflings she could hear coming
rhythmically downwards over her head were the feet of those carrying a
corpse. Now, weary and worn as she was, Maimuna--between the fifties
and sixties--did not yet feel inclined to fold her hands and give in.
Even now it needed a very little thing to bring a smile to her face;
and once, when a child had fallen downstairs, she had surprised the
neighbours by her alert decision. So that when she heard girls' shrill
voices in half-giggling alarm through her door--which was ajar--she
guessed at the cause, and called to the owners to come in until the
stairs should be clear.

One (a slip of a thing ten years old) she knew as the daughter of a
gold-thread worker higher up the stairs; the other (not more than five
or six) was a stranger; a fat broad-faced morsel, with a stolid look,
and something held very tight in one small chubby hand. She was dressed
in the cleanest of new clothes, scanty of stuff, but gay, with a yard
or two of tinsel on her scrap of a veil. Maimuna paused in the whirr
and hum of her wheel to look at the children wistfully; her own
childlessness had always seemed a crime to her.

"It is Fatma, the pen-maker's girl, _Mai_," said the gold-worker's
daughter, patronisingly. "She is just back from the Missen School,
where they have been having a big festival because it is the _sahib
log's_ big day."

"Tchuk," dissented the solemn-faced baby, clucking her tongue in
emphatic denial. "It is not the Big Day. It is because _Malika_
Victoria is--is----" The solemnity merged in confusion, finally into a
sort of appealing defiance: "Is--is--_that_----"

She unclasped her fist, and held out a brand new shining silver
two-anna bit. It was one of those struck when her Majesty the Queen
assumed the Imperial title.

The gold-worker's daughter giggled. "She means Wictoria
_Kaiser-i-hind_, you know. What the guns were about this morning. They
are to go off every year, they say. That will be fun!"

"But why?" asked Maimuna, puzzled. Her life for close on
five-and-twenty years had been spent in the cooking of quail curry and
spinning of cotton--the very Mutiny had passed by unknown to her. She
had heard vaguely of the Queen, and knew that it was her head on the
rupee which, despite the hard times, she always wore on a black silk
skein round her neck, because she had worn it since her babyhood, when
the parents of the boy who had died of the measles had sent it her; but
what the Queen had to do with John Company Bahadar, or he to her, was a
mystery.

"Why," giggled the elder girl, "because she is going to be the King,
and turn all the men out. That is what father says. He says she is sure
to favour the women, and I think that will be fun. But Fatma knows it
all. Come! dear one! Sing Maimuna that song the _miss sahibs_ made the
schools sing to-day. Sing it soft, close, close up to her ear, so that
no one may hear it--for they don't like her singing, you know, at home,
_Mai_: it isn't respectable."

So, standing on tip-toe, steadying herself against Maimuna's arm by the
hand which held the two-anna bit, Fatma began in a most unmelodious
whisper to chant a Hindee version of "God Save our Gracious Queen." The
words as well as the tune were a difficulty to the fat, solemn-faced
child, but the old woman sat listening and looking at the two-anna bit
with a new interest, a new wonder in her weary eyes.

"Bismillah!" she said, half way through, when the gold-worker's
daughter, becoming impatient, declared the corpse must have passed, and
dragged Fatma off incontinently. "And she is a woman--only a woman!"

The girls paused at the door; the elder to nod and giggle, the younger
to stand sedate and solemn, wagging one small forefinger backwards and
forwards in negation.

"Tchuk! you shouldn't say that, Mai! Little girls are made of sugar and
spice. It is little boys that are made nasty--the _miss_ says so."

"She should not say so," faltered Maimuna, aghast. The very idea was
preposterous, upsetting her whole cosmogony; but when they had closed
the door, she sat idle, too astonished to work. Then, suddenly, she
took off the black silk hank with its precious rupee, and looked at the
woman's head at the back.

It was a young woman there; young and unveiled--strange,
incomprehensible! But that other on the two-anna bit had been an old
woman, more decently dressed, and with a crown on her head.


                  "Frustrate their knavish tricks."


Fatma's song returned to memory. So the Queen, too, had enemies; and
yet she was Kaiser-i-hind, and, what is more, she made men like the
gold-thread worker upstairs tremble!


                     "On thee our hopes we fix!"


                          *   *   *   *   *


Maimuna sat, and sat, and sat, looking at that rupee.


                          *   *   *   *   *


It was a day or two after this that an English official was sitting
smoking in his verandah, when he became aware of a whispered colloquy
behind him. It was someone, no doubt, trying, through the red-coated
_chaprasi_, to gain an audience of him; and he was newly back from
office, tired, impatient, perhaps, of the hopelessness of doing justice
always. So he took no notice till something roused him to a swift turn,
a swifter question. "What's that, _chaprasi?_" _That_ was the
unmistakable chink of fallen silver, the unmistakable whirr of a
running rupee, the unmistakable buzzing ring of its settling to rest.
And there, midway between a giving and a taking hand, lay the rupee
itself--the Queen's head uppermost.

"_Hazoor!_" explained the _chaprasi_, glibly, "your slave was
virtuously refusing; he was sending this ill-bred one away. Hat!
_budhi!_[2] Hat!"

But the sight of that head on the precious rupee, which, after many
heartsearchings, poor Maimuna had determined to risk in this effort to
gain justice from a _budhi_ like herself, whose enemies also had
knavish tricks, brought courage to the old heart, and the old woman
stood her ground.

"_Gharibparwar!_" she said quietly, with her best salaam--and in the
old Pathan house they had taught manners, if nothing else--"Little
Fatma, the pen-maker's daughter, says that Wictoria Kaiser-i-hind is an
old woman like me, and so I have fixed my hopes on her. There is my
rupee. It is all I have, and I want my widow's portion."


                          *   *   *   *   *


And she got it. It happened years ago, but the story is worth telling
to-day, when women can no longer sing "God Save the Queen."




                        THE LAKE OF HIGH HOPE


A man stood watching a primrose dawn. There was a cloud upon his
face; none on the wide expanse of light-suffused sky beyond the dim
distance of the world. At his feet lay, stretching far, irregularly,
into the grey mistiness of morning, a great sheet of water. The dawn
showed on it as in a mirror, save where tall sedges and reeds sent
still-shining shadows over its level light. Unutterable peace lay upon
all things. They seemed still asleep, though the new day had come,
bringing with it good and evil, rest and strife.

And then, suddenly, there was a change. The man turned swiftly at a
light footstep behind him, to see a woman, and in an instant passion
leapt up, bringing with it joy and despair. For the woman was another
man's wife.

But something in her face made him open his arms and take her close to
his clasp. It seemed to him as if he had been waiting for this moment
ever since he was born.

She was a little bit of a woman, frail and fair, who looked
over-weighted by her dark riding habit, but both seemed lost in the
man's hold, as vibrating with tense emotion, he stood silent, their
mingled figures forming a swaying shadow against that further light.

"At last," he said, in tender exultation, "at long last!"

She threw back her head then, and looked him in the eyes, hope and
fear, and joy and sorrow showing in her face.

"I couldn't stand it--at the last," she almost sobbed, "when it came to
going away, and leaving you here--alone--with that awful risk--for no
one can say what mayn't come--with cholera---- _He_"--her voice
trembled over the small syllable--"started earlier--I am to meet him
by-and-by--so I came round--just to see you--and now----" She buried
her face again, and the sobs shook her gently. He tightened his hold.

"I'm glad!" he replied, in a hard voice. "It was bound to come sooner
or later--you couldn't go on for ever--an angel from heaven couldn't go
on standing--it all. But now----" his voice changed--"now you and
I----" he broke off and raised his head to listen.

It was a wild weird cry, that echoed and re-echoed over the wide
stretches of water, that rose in one long continuous melodious wail
from every reed bed, every thicket of sedge, every tuft of low lamarisk
and bent-rush; for it was the dawn-cry of the myriad wild fowl which
haunted this low-lying _jheel_ of Northern India, and swift as thought,
with a thunderous whirr of wide wings, the birds, teal and mallard and
widgeon, white eye, pochard, and green shank, purple heron and white,
rose in ones, in twos, in threes, in flocks, in companies, in serried
battalions.

The primrose dawn was half effaced, the coming day was darkened by
wheeling, veering, eddying flight, and the peace vanished in the strife
of wings.

"By George! what a shot," cried the man excitedly, even passion
forgotten as a trail of whistling teal swooped past, unconscious of
them, to settle on the still water, then, recognising unlooked for
humanity, veered at sharp angle to rise again into the troubled air.

But the woman clung closer. To her the interruption was terrible. The
soaring birds brought home to her what she had done, and before that
knowledge compelling emotion stopped abruptly.

"It is very foolish of me," she murmured brokenly, "and very
wrong--though I don't know!--I don't know! It was your danger--and I
was so tired--besides it--it need make no difference."

"No difference?" he echoed, in joyous, incredulous exultation. "Why, of
course, it makes all the difference in the world, little woman! You and
I can never go back again, _now!_ We can never pretend again that we
don't care! No! when this cholera camp is over, and I have time, we
must think over what is to be done--but it's final. Yes! it's final, my
darling, my darling!"

His kisses rained on her face, his heart encompassed her. So they stood
for a while, oblivious of the wheeling, veering, eddying wings above
them, oblivious of all things save that they were lovers, and that they
knew it.

Then she left him. "He" would be wondering why she was so late; but
Suleiman, the Arab pony, would soon carry her over the sandy plain.

The man remained watching the slight figure on the bounding grey till
it was lost in the "azure silk of morning." Then he returned slowly to
the _jheel_ again, lost in thought. There was a good deal whereof to
think, for she was a mother; by ill luck the mother of girls. Why had
she worn those tiny presentments of their sweet baby faces in the
double heart brooch which fastened her folded tie! She had not thought,
of course; but it had somehow come between him and his kisses after he
had noticed it.

Well! it was unfortunate; but that sort of thing had to be faced, and
he _would_ face it after he had seen his cholera camp through; for he
was a doctor, and the thought of what might lie before him was with him
as a background to all others. He had chosen a good place for the camp,
yonder among the low sandhills, which were the highest point in all the
desert plain, and, if that did not kill the germ, they could move on.

Meanwhile---- He drew a long breath and looked out over the water. The
primrose dawn had passed to amber, the amber was beginning to flame,
the whirring wings had carried the birds to distant feeding grounds,
only a flock of egrets remained fishing solemnly in a distant shallow.

"The Huzoor is looking for God's birds," said a courteous voice beside
him. "They have gone, likely, to the Lake of High Hope, for it nears
the time of transit to a Higher Land."

The speaker was an old man seated so close to the water that his feet
and legs were hidden by it. He had a simple, pleasant face, which
over-thinness had refined almost to austerity.

The doctor took stock of him quietly. His speech proclaimed him a down
country man, his lack of any garment save a strip of saffron cloth
around his loins suggested asceticism, but his smile was at once
familiar and kindly.

"M[=a]nasa Sarovara?" replied the Englishman, carelessly, "is that what
you mean? I am told the birds really do go there during the hot
weather. I wonder if it is true. I should like to see it." He spoke
half to himself, for he was somewhat of an ornothologist and the tale
of the great West Tibetan Lake of Refuge for God's dear birds--that
lake far from the haunts of men amid the eternal snow and ice, into
which so many streams flow, out of which come none--had caught his
fancy.

"The Huzoor can go when he chooses," remarked the old man placidly;
"but he must leave many things behind him first; the _mem sahiba_, for
instance."

The doctor felt himself flush up to the very roots of his hair, and his
first instinct was to fall upon the evident eavesdropper. Consideration
natheless condemning this course, he tried cool indifference.

"You have been here some time, I perceive," he said calmly.

"I have been all the time behind the _shivala_," acquiesced the other,
with beautiful frankness, as he pointed to a large black upright stone
set on end by the water. "The Huzoor was--was too much occupied to
observe this slave."

"So that is a _shivala_, is it?" interpolated the Englishman hurriedly;
"it doesn't look much like a temple."

"We pilgrims call it so, Huzoor, and we worship it."

"Then you are a pilgrim--whither?"

"To the Lake of High Hope, Huzoor," came the answer, and there was a
tinge of sadness in the tone. "I have been going thither these twenty
years past, but my feet are against me. God made them crooked."

He drew them out of the water as he spoke, and the doctor's
professional eye recognised a rare deformity; recognised also that they
were unconceivably blistered and worn.

"You will not get to M[=a]nasa Sarovara on those," he said kindly;
"they need rest, not travel."

The old man shook his head, and a trace of hurry crept into his voice.
"I give them such rest as I can, Huzoor. That is why I sat with them in
heaven's healing water; but I must get to M[=a]nasa Sarovara, or my
pilgrimage will be lost--and it is not for my own soul, see you." Then
he smiled brilliantly. "And this slave will reach it, Huzoor. Shiv's
angels tell me so."

"Shiv's angels?" queried the doctor.

"The birds yonder, Huzoor," replied the old man gravely, pointing to
the flock of fishing egrets. "Some call them rice birds, and others
egrets, but they come from Shiv's Paradise--one can tell that by their
plumes--perhaps that is why the _mems_ are so fond of wearing them."

A sudden memory of her face as he had first seen it beneath a snowy
aigrette of such plumes assailed the doctor's mind; but it brought a
vague dissatisfaction. "_Herodias alba_," he muttered to himself,
giving the Latin name of the bird, "more likely to have something to do
with dancing away a man's head!" Then a vague remorse at the harshness
of his thought made him say curiously: "And why must I leave the _mem_
behind if I want to reach the Lake of High Hope?"

"Because she is a mother, Huzoor," came the unexpected reply, followed
by deprecating explanation. "This slave has good eyes--he saw the
childs' faces on her breast."

Once again the doctor felt that unaccustomed thrill along the roots of
his hair. What right had this old man to see--everything?--and to
preach at him? A sudden antagonism leapt up in him against all rules,
all limitations.

"Well! I don't mean to leave her behind, I can tell you," he said
almost petulantly. "When a man has found Paradise----"

"Shiv's Paradise is close to the Lake of High Hope," interrupted the
suave old voice.

"D--n Shiv's Paradise!" cried the doctor; then he laughed. "It's no
use, br[=a]hman-_jee_, for I suppose you are a br[=a]hman. I'm not
going to be stopped by snow or ice. Look here,"--his mood changed
abruptly to quick masterful protest--"that would be to give up
happiness. Now! what makes you happy? Holiness, I expect, being a
pilgrim! high caste! one of the elect! Give that all up,
br[=a]hman-_jee_--and--and I'll think about it. And if you'll come over
there," he pointed to the low sandhills as he spoke, "this evening.
I'll give you an ointment for those blistered feet of yours--you'll
never get to M[=a]nasa Sarovara otherwise, you know."

"I shall get there some time, Huzoor," came the confident reply.

Perhaps the old man came; perhaps he did not. The doctor was far too
busy to care, since before daylight failed he found himself face to
face with the tightest corner of his life. The promise of the primrose
dawn passed before noon. Heavy rain clouds massed themselves into a
purple pall, dull, lowering, silent, until, with the close of day, the
courage of the coming storm rose in low mutterings.

And then, at last, the rain fell--fell in torrents. It found the
regiment--seeking safety from the scourge of cholera,--on the march,
and disorganised it utterly. With baggage waggons bogged, soldiers
already discouraged by dread, all drenched and disordered, there was
nothing to be done but keep cool and trust that chance might avert
disaster, since no man could hurry up tents that were miles behind.

"There's another man in G company down, sir," said the hospital
sergeant, "and the apothecary reports no more room in his ward."

"There's room here," replied the doctor, setting his teeth. "Orderly!
put a blanket in that corner and lift Smith to it--he's getting
better--he'll do all right."

So yet one more man found a cot and such comfort as skill and strength
of purpose could give him, while the thunder crashed overhead and the
pitiless rain hammered at the taut tent roof like a drum. One had to
shout to make oneself heard.

"Lights! I say, lights! I've been calling for them these ten minutes.
Why the devil doesn't someone bring them? I can't see to do anything."

The doctor's voice rang resonantly; but the lights did not come. The
waggon with the petroleum tins was hopelessly bogged miles away, and in
the confusion no one had thought of lights.

"Thank God for the lightning," muttered the doctor with unwonted piety,
as with awful blinding suddenness the whole hospital tent blazed into
blue brilliance, putting out the miserable glimmer of the oil lantern
that had been raised from somewhere. In that brief luminous second he
could at least see his patients--thirty of them or more. It was not an
encouraging sight. The livid look on many faces might be discounted by
the lightning, but there was an ominous stillness in some that told its
tale.

"Gone! Bring in another man from outside," came the swift verdict and
order after a moment's inspection with the oil lantern.

"Beg pardin', sir," almost whined a hospital orderly "but Apothecary
Jones has sent to say he's took himself, an' can't go on no more; an'
beggin' your pardin, sir, I'm feeling awful bad myself."

The doctor held up the lantern, and its bull's eye showed a face as
livid as any in the tent; a face distorted by justifiable horror and
fear.

"Go into the quarantine tent, it's up by now, and tell them to give you
a stiff-un of rum with chlorodyne in it. You'll be better by-and-by.
I've no use for you here."

And he had no use for him--that was true. Shaking hands and trembling
nerves were only in the way in a tight corner like this. So, one by
one, men fell away, leaving the one strong soul and body to wrestle
with a perfect hell.

For the rain never ceased, the thunder went on crashing, the lightning
was almost incessant. Thank God for that! Thank God for the inches of
running water on the floor of the tent that swept away its unspeakable
uncleanlinesses, for the thunder's voice that drowned all other sounds,
for the blessed light which made it possible to work.

The very sweepers disappeared at last. No one was left save that one
strong soul and body, and even he stood for a second, dazed,
irresolute.

"How can this slave help the Protector of the Poor," came a courteous
voice beside him, and he turned to see a smile at once familiar and
kindly.

"How?" echoed the doctor, stupidly; then he recovered himself. "You
can't. You're a br[=a]hman--high caste--all that----"

"This slave has come to help the Huzoor, so that he may be able to
reach M[=a]nasa Sarovara," was the quiet insistent reply. "Where shall
he begin?"

A sudden spasm almost of anger shot through the strong soul and body as
it realised and recollected, vaguely, dimly, as rudely, roughly, it
gave no choice save the most menial work. But instant obedience
followed, and the doctor, dismissing all other thoughts, plunged once
more into the immediate present. The rain pelted, the thunder roared,
but every time that blue brilliance filled the tent, it showed two men
at work, both doing their duty nobly.

A born nurse! thought the doctor almost remorsefully, as he saw the old
man moving about swiftly and remembered those blistered and bleeding
feet. "They must hurt you--awfully," he said at last.

"God's healing water cools them, Huzoor," replied the old man, with a
radiant smile, "I shall not be delayed in reaching the Lake of High
Hope."

So the long night drew down to dawn once more, and dawn brought peace
again, even to the cholera camp. An hour and a half passed without a
fresh case, and the doctor, realising that the crisis was over, found
time to notice the grey glimmer of light stealing through each crack
and cranny of the tent. He set the flap aside and looked out. The
primrose east was all barred with purple clouds, the distant _jheel_
lay in still shiny shadow, but there was no concerted dawn cry of the
wild birds, and the flights of whirring wings were isolated, errant.

"The call has come to them, Huzoor," said the suave old voice beside
him. "They have gone to M[=a]nasa Sarovara, leaving all things behind
them."

The Englishman turned abruptly, almost with an oath, and began to count
the costs of the night. Thirty-six dead bodies awaiting burial; but no
more--no more!

With the mysterious inconsequence of cholera, the scourge had come, and
gone. Seen in the first level rays of the sun, the camp looked almost
cheerful, almost bright. A couple of doctors had ridden out from
headquarters--there was no more to be done.

"I'll go out for a bit, and shake off the hell I've been in all night,"
said the doctor to the chief apothecary, who was recounting his past
symptoms with suspicious accuracy. So he went out and wandered round
the _jheel_, watching a flock of egrets--_Herodias alba_--that still
lingered in its level waters. Were they really Shiv's angels?--or did
they dance away men's brains----?

The sun was already high when he returned to camp, looking worn and
tired. The hospital orderly whom he had sent to bed with rum and
chlorodyne was standing, spruce and alert, at the canteen.

"Feeling better, eh, Green?" he said kindly, as he passed, then added:
"All right, I suppose. No more cases or deaths?"

"No, sir," replied the orderly, saluting somewhat shamefacedly.
"Leastways, not to count. There's a h'ole man as they found dead
outside the camp about quarter of an hour agone, but not being on the
strength of the regiment, 'e don't count."

Five minutes afterwards the doctor, his face still more tired and worn,
was looking down on the body of his helper. It must have been one of
those sudden cases in which collapse comes on from the very first, for
no one had seen the old man ill. They had simply found him lying
peacefully dead with his blistered deformed feet in a pool of water.


                          *   *   *   *   *


The doctor wrote a letter; it was rather a wild letter about plumes and
egrets and the difficulty of distinguishing _Herodias alba_ from the
stork which brought babies. For the strain of that night in hell, and
the subsequent fever brought on by wandering about the _jheel_ land
when he was outwearied had told even upon his body and soul.

So they sent him to the hills when he began to recover, and being a
keen sportsman he did not stop in the Capuas of smart society, but made
straight for the solitudes, seeking for something to slay; for he felt
a bit savage sometimes. And ever, though he did not acknowledge the
fact, his route brought him nearer and nearer to that high Tibetan land
where ice and snow reign eternal. Through Garhw[=a]l and up by
Kidarn[=a]th where the new born Ganges issues from a frost-bound cave,
until one day he pitched his little six-foot hunter's tent on the other
side of the Holy Himalaya and looked down into the wide upland valleys
of Naki-khorsum and up beyond them to the great white cone of
Kail[=a]sa, the Paradise of Shiva.

A mere iceberg cutting the clear blue sky. How cold, how distant, how
utterly unsatisfactory! He stood looking at it in the chill moonlight
after his two servants were snoring round the juniper fire on their
beds of juniper boughs--looking, and smoking, and thinking.

He had thought much during his three months of solitary wandering, and
now the time was coming when thoughts must be translated into action,
for his leave was nearly up. Should he go backwards or forwards? Go on
to M[=a]nasa Sarovara, or set his face towards lower levels? Should
Hope of the mind take the place of Hope of the body? Bah! he was a
fool! He would be a sensible man and return. That was his last thought
as he rolled himself in his hunter's blanket and lay down to sleep.

But the dawn found him plodding on in front of his two coolies towards
that compelling cone of snow. He left the tent at the foot of the next
ridge, and that night the last thing he saw was Orion's Sword resting
upon the summit of Mount Kail[=a]sa.

Yes! he would go on. He would see if it were true that _Herodias alba_
disported its plumes on the waters of the Lake of High Hope.

During the latter part of his wanderings he had, partly owing to the
unsettled and hesitating state of his mind, diverged from the pilgrim
track; but here, on this last day, he rejoined it, and in more than one
place the bones of someone who had fallen by the way, showed amongst
the flowers which carpeted every rent in the world's white shroud of
snow; showed like streaks of snow itself, so bleached were they by long
months of frost.

But the flowers! what countless thousands of them--low, almost
leafless, hurrying in hot haste to blossom while they yet had time. And
yet how pure, how cold, how colourless had not this mountain-side
looked from afar. Almost as cold as Kail[=a]sa, which, viewed from the
height of the pass, seemed barely more significant.

But every foot of descent made a difference, and soon over the rocky
ravine it rose stupendous, its great glacier shiny cold, inaccessible.
Before long it would overtop the sky and reach High Heaven. No wonder
men thought of Paradise!

Down and down, through a mere cleft in the rocks that closed in,
shutting out all view....

Then, suddenly, he gave a little gasp and stood still.

So that was the Lake of the Soul's Hope--M[=a]nasa Sarovara! The pure
beauty of it sank into him, its rest and peace filled him with content.

A wilderness--a perfect wilderness of bright-hued flowers between the
snow slopes and the lake whose blue waters gleamed like sapphires
between the diamond icebergs that drifted hither and thither on its
breeze-kissed waves.

But not one sign of life; no movement, no noise, save every now and
again a far-distant thunderous roar, and a puff of distant white smoke
upon some mountain-side telling of a falling avalanche.

Cradled in snow, yet wreathed in flowers; solemn, secure, unchangeable!

It was a marvellous sight. He was glad he had come, for it was a place
where one could think--_really_ think.

So he stood and thought--really--for a while; and then he took out his
watch. Time was waning, for he had to re-climb the pass and rejoin his
tent ere sundown. Still there was enough left for him to reach that
jutting flower-set promontory, whence, surely the best view of the
whole would be obtained.

Yes! decidedly the best! Shiv's Paradise, rising from the water's edge,
showed from hence, equal-sided, serene, unassailable, a pure pyramid of
ice.

Truly a sight never to be forgotten; a sight well worth a pilgrimage.

And then some swift remembrance made him glance downwards, and he saw
before him the bleached skeleton of a man. Something in the attitude of
it, the feet hidden in the lake made him stoop curiously to see what
its sapphire surface covered.

What was it?

He stood looking down into the rippling water that whispered and
whispered to the flowers ceaselessly, for some time; then he turned and
climbed the hill again.

But, even if he had taken anything with him to M[=a]nasa Sarovara, he
left it behind him there beside the skeleton of a man with curiously
deformed feet. But the blisters had gone.




                            RETAINING FEES


It is not always on rocks and rapids that the cockle shell of human
happiness meets with the direst shipwreck. Often in the quietest
backwaters, where no current is, where not a ripple disturbs the still
surface, disaster so absolute, so overwhelming comes, that the very
tragedy of it sinks out of sight also, unrecognised, unrecorded.

Such a backwater was a little square of roof four pair back, in a tall
tenement house in Lucknow, where one blazing hot day in June a buxom
woman, with a yellow-skinned baby hitched to her hip outside the
voluminous veil of dirty crushed calico, which for the present was
mostly in folds about her feet, was haranguing three other women who
sat working as for dear life in the hard unyielding shadow of the high
walls, which were deemed necessary even here to shut out the
possibility of prying eyes.

"What you need, honourable ladies," finished Mussumet Jewuni
decisively, "is a 'bannister.'"

"A 'bannister!'" echoed the eldest of the three listeners. "And what
new-fangled thing is that?"

She did not slacken a second in her deft twirling of her distaff,
neither did the others, despite their questioning eyes, relax their
swift business. Indeed, as they sat in the shadows, the three might
have served as a model for the Fates, since Khulâsa Khânum span
ceaselessly. Aftâba Khânum wound yarn on a circling bamboo frame, and
Lateefa Khânum snipped with a very large pair of scissors at the shirt
she was making; for, being many years younger than the others, her eyes
were still fit for fine back-stitching. Beautiful hazel eyes they were,
too: large, soft, full of sunshine and shadow.

Jewuni dismissed one mouthful of betel nut and began on another ere she
replied.

"A 'bannister' is a pleader, who, having been across the black water to
London, knows new tricks wherewith to confound the old ones. 'Tis the
only chance for justice, ladies. I know of such an one, and could bring
him here to receive instruction, and mayhap there would be no need for
the honourable ladies to answer in Court."

Khulâsa Khânum's hands froze in horror; she glanced anxiously towards
Lateefa. "Talk not like that before the child, woman!" she interrupted,
almost fiercely. "No strange man, as thou knowest, comes to this
virtuous house, and no woman goes out of it."

Both statements were absolutely true; these women, distant relations,
yet bound to each other by the tie of a common poverty, a common wrong,
had not set foot beyond that square of roof for years and no men--save
those whose interest it was to keep them poor--had ever climbed the
steep stair hole which showed like a cavernous shadow in the high back
wall.

Yet Jewuni Begum laughed. She was a very different stamp of woman. Her
oil-beplastered hair narrowing her forehead beyond even Nature's
intention, and the soap curls at her silver and gold tasselled ears
were of a fashion which left little doubt as to her moral character;
but, being a bottomless receptacle for the gossip of the whole town,
owing to her husband's position as a paid tout at the Law Courts, the
neighbourhood in general, and even that virtuous roof in particular,
had left inquiry and condemnation alone for the present.

"Lo! Khânum!" she giggled, "that is true enough, God knows; yet what
avails it for reputation? None. 'Tis a rare joke, and I meant not to
tell it thee; still, 'tis too good to be lost. In the Mirza's reply to
the last petition sent from this house for direct payment of the
pension due to honourable ladies, it is written--my man saw it, and
there was laughter among the writers, I will go bail--that the
petitioners, being giddy young things, given to wanton ways, it is
necessary for the honour of a princely family that they be held under
restraint; such money as is due being expended lavishly, aye! and more,
in securing the luxury due to gentlewomen of your estate."

Here she herself went off into such chuckles that the yellow baby had
to be shifted higher on her shaking side.

The three women ceased working, and looked at each other helplessly,
while underneath their curiously fair skins a flush showed distinctly.

"Did they say that--of us?" asked Aftâba Khânum at last, in a faltering
voice. Perhaps it was her occupation of winding hanks without tangle
which made her always so keen to have all things clear.

"And of me?" echoed Khulâsa faintly. Her old face had grown very grey,
her hands, though they had ceased working, were no longer frozen; they
trembled visibly.

Only Lateefa sat silent, a swift yet sullen anger on her still young
face.

Jewuni giggled again. "There was no distinction of decency, Khânum. But
'tis too bad, and that is why I spoke of a 'bannister' to confound such
old tricks with new ones. However, 'tis no business of mine, only," she
paused in her conversation, and, going beside Lateefa, she lowered her
voice, "there is no need for stitching shirts till shroud-time comes.
There be other ways, as I have told thee before, of earning money, aye!
enough even to pay a 'bannister's' fee, and get the truth made known.
So, if thou preferest to be as a hooded falcon, seeing nothing of the
sport in life, sit and stitch. If not, come to me and claim freedom--in
all things."

When she and the yellow baby had gone, silence fell on the desecrated
little square of virtuous roof.

Truly it was hard! After a life-time of patient propriety, long years
of self-denial involving silence and seclusion even from scant justice,
to have all these virtues reft from them in order that wantonness and
giddiness and youth might serve as an excuse for withholding their
rights! That these rights should be traversed was to their experience
no new thing, though to Western ears it may seem inconceivable that
even under British rule it is the easiest thing in the world to treat
secluded women as these three had been treated. Briefly, for the male
head of the family, as guardian, to leave them to starve, while he made
merry over their poor pittances of pensions granted to them by
Government in consideration of their race, or its good services. No
wonder, then, that Khulâsa sat helpless, resorting for comfort to the
little rosary she always carried, that Aftâba's tears ran silently down
her withered cheeks, or that Lateefa's sullen anger gave a dangerous
look to her still handsome face. So dangerous that fear pierced
Aftâba's soft self-pity at last, making her ask anxiously:

"What was it she said to thee privately, Lateefa? Naught worse,
surely?"

The darkening of the handsome face was not all anger now. Lateefa rose
with a bitter laugh.

"Nay! she but spoke of 'fees' for justice, as if we had aught to pay.
Yet something must be done."

"We have done too much already," came Khulâsa's shaking voice. "If we
had trusted in the Lord instead of sending petitions there would have
been no need for them to tell the lie. If we had waited----"

"Lo! we had waited," put in Aftâba, "and petitions are no new thing.
Our fathers made them. They are not like 'bannisters' and strange men.
These----"

There was no need for her to explain what these were to that virtuous
roof, for at the moment a tentative cough from the stair-hole
accompanied by the rhythmic squelching of water in a skin-bag announced
the daily visitation of old Shamira, the _bhisti_, who had filled their
earthen pots for them for years and years; and in an instant veils were
hastily drawn close, faces turned to the wall.

"_Bismillah!_" came the orthodox greeting, for old Shamira knew all
about the honourable ladies, and in a way loved them, though he had
never once seen them in all the long years.

"_Bismillah! irruhman, niruheem!_" returned the virtuous ones
decorously. Only Lateefa, standing in the corner, felt that there was
but half a truth in the words. God might be clement in the next world,
but he was far from merciful in this. Yet it was not the fault of the
world itself; that was fair enough. There was a displaced brick in the
corner where she stood, and, profiting by the temporary blindness of
her veiled companions, she did what she had done several times on the
sly, during the past few weeks--she took advantage of the brick-hole
and tip-toe to gain a glimpse of that outside world. It was the veriest
glimpse indeed, of purpling shadowy roofs huddled against a flare of
sunset sky, but the dust haze through which she saw it seemed a golden
halo of transfiguration, and in a second she had made her choice. She
would pay a retaining fee for bare justice to her own womanhood. Jewuni
was right! Times had changed. Why should she waste her life clinging to
old ways when new freedom was within reach.

Yet there was a startled, half-frightened look both in the sunshine and
shadow of her hazel eyes, as she waited, face towards the wall, till
the cool sound of pouring water have ceased, she was free to resume her
limited life. Limited, indeed! How strange those limitations seemed in
the light of her new decision!

But those brief minutes of arrest, due to old Shamira's entry into the
feminine cosmogony, had, curiously enough, brought decision to the
other two women, for, in truth, Jewuni's story, Jewuni's giggle at the
joke, had been the last straw to their patience, the final goad rousing
them to action of which, each in her own way, they had been dreaming
for long.

They, too, felt that the time was past for temporising, for trimming
their sails to suit each other's opinions.

So Khulâsa Khânum's pallid, high-featured face was more like that of
one new-dead than ever, when Shamira gone, she returned to work. And,
in truth, she had in those few seconds died for ever to this world and
its works.

Delicate from her babyhood, saintly from pure suffering, joy had had
small part even in her desire, and her resistance to pain had been
always half-hearted. For what was even the justice of man worth in
comparison with the justice of God? Naturally enough, then, Jewuni's
tale of the sorry jest had been more a horror to her than to either of
the others, making her turn to the hidden meaning of her thwarted life
for comfort. Her retaining fee for justice should be paid where there
was no fear of a miscarriage. And in the meantime, while the tyranny of
life lasted, she must work--work to the end.

For on her work, practically, those others lived. In all the town no
hands could spin a finer thread than old Khulâsa Khânum's. The very
spinning jennies of Bombay could not compete with her ceaseless
industry; and there still remained noble folk who clung to the
spider's-web muslin of the old times. So her hands twirled faster, more
deftly. The rest was with God.

Aftâba Khânum, on the contrary, had decided for the world; not, as
Lateefa had done, for the world as it was in these latter days, but for
the world as it ought to be, as it used to be. She had a very different
strain in her from those other two; from Khulâsa in her spirituality
Lateefa in her emotionality. Aftâba, even when things were at their
worst, smiled, consoling herself and the roof generally with some
unexpected and perhaps extravagant scrap of amusement. A mouthful of
pillau concocted out of nothing to season a dry bread dinner, a
ridiculous toy made out of rubbish, whereat all laughed. Courtier-born,
she loved even the old etiquettes by instinct, while her keen wit could
find a clue of an intrigue as deftly as her fingers could disentangle
Khulâsa's cobwebs. And, of all three, she kept in closer touch with a
world with which she had not quarrelled, despite its injustice towards
her. There was, indeed, a certain Uncle Chirâgh who still came to see
her, and her only, once or twice a year. A blue-beard dodderer, with a
twinkling eye, and a still mellow voice, who sometimes brought quails
with him, and spices, so that Aftâba might regale him with one of her
best curries; for she was a great cook.

So the spur of Jewuni's retailed insult came as a challenge to Aftâba's
sense of propriety. The world might be diseased by novelty, but the
foundations were sure. She had been a fool all these years to acquiesce
in impersonal petitions with purposeless stamps to them, instead of
some graceful tribute, after the older, approved method. True, she had
once broached the subject to Jewuni. She had even gone so far as to
bring out a certain faded brocaded bag, which was her greatest
treasure, and produce therefrom a medal or two, a dozen or more worn
letters. Quaint, old-world informations to the reader, that the bearer,
Futteh, or Iman, or Hassan, was such and such a worthy person--a
gold-spangled record of thanks for service in the Mutiny--the
intimation of one Rissildar Tez Khan's death in action; which latter
had indeed been the cause of Aftâba's loneliness. Even (curious
survival of friendly days gone, never to return) a few English words,
in sprawling, irresponsible, boyish handwriting, to say that the
self-same Tez Khan knew the whereabouts of every living creature fit to
shoot in the whole countryside!

But Jewuni had scorned the suggestion of sending these to the bigwig
with, say, a basket of Aftâba's famous pumpkin preserve, since, alas,
oranges stuffed with rupees were out of the question. Indeed, she had
said succinctly:

"Keep them till the Day of Judgment. The Lord may look at them, the law
will not. For, see, they are not even stamped, and without stamps is no
justice possible."

Even then old Aftâba had felt, with dim obstinacy, that it was not law
or justice she sought: it was favour! Favour such as the great had to
give in a well-ordered world!

And so she, in her turn, came back to the limitations of her life with
a decision. Uncle Chirâgh had told her but a week or two before--as
luck would have it!--that the whole town was to be in an uproar the
very next day over the unveiling of a statue of Malika Victoria. The
anniversary of a great day in the heroic annals of the Defence of the
Residency--for which, by the way, that gold-spangled gratitude had been
given--had been chosen as fitting for the ceremonial. The grounds were
to be lit up, fireworks let off, and special messages sent to and from
the Queen herself, while the statue would be covered with offerings.
Could anything be more opportune for the decorous presentation of a
retaining fee?

So next day, while Lateefa Khânum stitched, repenting not at all yet,
still with a flutter of her heart, and Khulâsa Khânum, with an odd
flutter at her heart also, which kept the colour even from her lips,
worked and prayed, Aftâba used the privacy of a tiny kitchen for the
preparation of other things than a scanty dinner of herbs. It meant the
loss of her only silver bangle, sold on the sly through the market
woman who came every morning. It was quite the most valuable thing in
the house; yet there was but a farthing or two left by the time the
pumpkin preserve, covered with silver leaf, lay in a tinselled rush
basket with the precious brocaded bag on the top, and the market woman,
bribed to return for it in the afternoon, had received a generous
douceur which would surely ensure its due delivery.

All this took time, and was tiring, to boot; so it was nigh sunset
when, after a sleep which had taken her almost unawares in the little
cook room, Aftâba came out again to the limited life on the roof. As
she did so, the familiar tentative cough of Shamira the _bhisti_ on his
rounds, accompanied by the squelching of his water-skin, made her step
back into the screening wall.

"_Bismillah!_" she said, wondering not to hear the familiar greeting.
But old Shamira was staring helplessly at something he had never seen
before. It was old Khulâsa Khânum.

"She must be dead," he said, simply, to Aftâba's horrified disbelief.
"See! She sits with face unveiled."

And she was dead. Her retaining fee had brought justice swiftly. And
Lateefa?

Aftâba, when she realised the emptiness of the roof save for herself
and the dead woman, wondered if it was the sight of one who belonged to
it slipping downstairs from its virtue that, by its terrible
confirmation of wantonness, had sent Khulâsa to seek to a higher
tribunal.

As for herself!

That night, when the waiters had gone, promising to return at dawn, and
she was left really alone for the first time, she sat wondering what
fate her preserved pumpkins would bring. And then she did something she
had never done in all her life before. She, too, used the hole left by
the displaced brick to gain a glimpse of the world which was doing
honour to dead heroes, and to the Queen for whom they died. As she did
so the first rockets rose from the unseen Residency to commemorate its
brave defenders, and set their stars of glory in high heaven.

Up and up, valiantly, higher and higher, full of the best intentions,
they went, typical, so far, of the hands that sent them on their
mission. And then?

Then old Aftâba stepped down from her vain vantage, and creeping back
to where Khulâsa lay waiting the dawn, put her head down beside hers
and wept.

For the stars had fallen, but the dead woman's retaining fee had
reached the Mercy Seat.




                              HIS CHANCE


He sate biting his nails viciously. It was not a habit of his, but, at
the moment, the tangle of his nineteen years of life had been too much
for him, and he sate before it, helpless yet resentful.

He was trying to write a letter to his mother, his widowed mother far
away over the black water in England, to tell her that he had been
placed under arrest for cowardice--since that was what it came to in
the end!--and yet not to hurt her, not to blame her, whom every bit of
his being blamed. Why had she brought him up a nincompoop? Why had she
been so afraid of him?--poor little mother whose nerves had been
shattered once and for all by her hero husband's death ere her child
was born. Yet that father had been brave to recklessness....

The boy's head went down on his arm. Something like a sob quivered
through the hot air. For it was hot, though the sun was but an hour
old, in the little grass-thatched bungalow which boasted of but one
room, two verandahs, and two corresponding slips of dark enclosed
space; one a bathroom, the other full of saddles, corn, empty
boxes--briefly, the factotum's go-down. The whole house being nothing
but a square mushroom set down causelessly in a dusty plain and guarded
by two whitewashed gate-pillars, one of which bore the legend, on a
black board, "Ensign Hector Clive, 1st Pioneers."

A good name, Hector Clive, and yet the boy's head was down on his arm.
Why had he been such a cursed fool?

A brain-fever bird was hard at work in a far-off _sirus_ tree. He could
see it in his mind's eye--green, with its red head held high among the
powder-puff flowers, as it gave its incessant cry with the regularity
of a coppersmith's hammer--for, though he had been but one year in the
country, he knew all its birds, and beasts, and flowers; aye! and had a
good smattering of its lingo also--it was that, partly, which had made
him--what was it--afraid--or--or cautious?

His brain was in such a whirl he could not tell which. And he had no
one to whom he could talk; not a friend in the whole regiment, for he
was shy. That was why he was living alone in this cursed shanty where
the centipedes and snakes, too, sometimes (but he was not afraid of
them, or of any animal, thank heaven), fell from the cloth ceiling, and
the sparrows (poor devils, after all they were only making their nests)
dropped straws over one's letters. That one had made a blot--like a
tear-mark--or was it, indeed...?

He cursed again under his breath, and a rigid obstinacy came to his
face.

Like his name, it was a good enough face, though curiously young even
for his young age. The great height of his forehead, it is true, took
away from its breadth, and the short-sighted blink of the eyes set so
close upon the high narrow nose prevented their piercing clearness from
being seen. On the lower part of his face, hair had scarcely begun to
show itself. All was callow, immature; yet the square chin showed stiff
and strong enough.

There should, at least, be no suspicion of tear marks, so he took a
fresh sheet: and then the thought struck him. He would write two
letters. One to the dear little Mother who had devoted herself to
him--him only--ever since he was born; the other to the woman
who had spoiled him and his life, whose timidity had accentuated his
birth-legacy of fear. It would do him good to have it out with himself
and with Fate--not with Her--no! never with Her!

So this was what he wrote, and left lying on the table when an orderly
came to summon him to the Colonel:


"Dear Mother,--It has come at last! I always knew it must come if you
would make a soldier of me, just because my father was one! Why didn't
you think? Why didn't you know? Poor Mother! I'm sorry to write all
this. How could you dream I have felt more or less of a coward all my
life, when _he_ was so brave!

"And then you made me worse--you know you did. I wasn't allowed to risk
things like the other boys did; because I was your only one. Ah! I
don't blame you, but it was rough on me. I should have made an
excellent parson, I expect. And yet I'll be damned--this isn't really
for your eyes, mother darling--if I can see what good I should have
done if I had ordered that Sepoy under arrest? The men wouldn't have
obeyed orders. I saw murder in their eyes. I've seen it for a long
time, and I haven't dared to say so--haven't dared to warn those who
should be warned for fear of being thought a coward--Isn't that
cowardice in itself? Oh, Mother, Mother! Well, it was very simple. A
Sepoy was cheeky over these greased cartridges; actually threatened to
shoot me if I ordered him under arrest, and--I--you see I know a lot of
their lingo, and I understand--I was afraid to do what I ought to have
done--chanced it. Of course it doesn't read as bare as that in the
Adjutant's report--but I am under arrest. Not that it matters. It must
have come sooner or later--for I'm a coward--that is what I am--a
coward...."


The words, still wet, stared up into the baggy cloth ceiling, and the
sparrows dropped straws over them while Ensign Hector Clive was being
interviewed by his Colonel. He sate stolid, acquiescing in every word
of blame; and yet he was obstinate.

"I don't see, sir, what good it would have done," he began drearily,
when the Colonel stopped him with a high hand.

"Now, I won't have a word of that sort, Mr. Clive," he said severely.
"There is enough of that silly talk amongst civilians, and I won't have
it amongst the officers of my regiment. It is as good a regiment as any
in India, and I'll stake----"

Here, feeling some lack of dignity in what he was about to say, he
stood up, and the lad standing up also, overtopped his senior by many
inches. Something suggestive in his still lanky length seemed to strike
the Colonel. "I'll tell you what it is, Clive, you live too much alone.
You're altogether too--too--why! I don't believe you even had a cup of
tea before you started. There! I was sure of it. Absolute suicide! How
can you expect, in this climate--and with a Colonel's wigging before
you--Really too foolish--my wife shall give you one now--she's in the
verandah with the boy--and--and, of course, I can't promise--but
you--you shall have your chance--if--if possible."

The--lad--for he was but that--murmured something unintelligible.
Perhaps to his dejected mind, another chance seemed to be but another
opportunity of disgracing himself.

"How very shy he is," thought the tall slim woman who gave a cup of tea
into his reluctant hand and sent Sonnie round to him with the toast and
butter. "I must get you to give my small son a lesson, Mr. Clive," she
said, smiling, trying to make conversation. "He was telling me all
sorts of dreadful things he has heard--so he says--from Budlu, his
bearer, and that he was frightened. And I told him a soldier's son
never could be frightened at anything. Isn't that true?"

Ensign Hector Clive turned deadly pale. The child standing, with the
plate of toast and butter, looked up at him confidently, as children
look always where they feel there is sympathy.

"But you are flightened, aren't you?" he asked.

There was an instant's silence; then the answer came, desperately true:
"Yes! I am--but then I'm a coward--that's what I am--a coward!"

You might have heard a pin drop in the pause. Then something in the
wise, gentle face of the Colonel's wife broke down the barriers.

"Ah! you don't know----" he began; and so with a rush it all came out.

The Colonel's wife sate quite still; she was accustomed to confidences,
and even when they did not come voluntarily she had the art of
beguiling them. The art also of comforting the confider; and so when
the lad's face had gone into his hands with his last words, as he
sate--his elbows on his knees--the picture of dejection, she just rose
gently, and came over with soft step to where he was. And she laid a
soft hand on either of his lank long-fingered ones and pulled them
apart. So, standing, smiled down upon him brilliantly--confidently.

"I don't believe it!" she said, "I don't believe a word of it! You'll
be brave--oh! so brave, when your chance comes. Now, my dear, dear
boy----" she looked at him as if he had been her son--"go away and
forget all this nonsense. And see! Come back at dinner time and tell me
before dinner that you've obeyed orders and haven't even thought about
it."

She stood and waved her hand at him as he rode away in the blare of
sunlight. Her voice echoing through the hot dry air reached him faintly
as he turned out of her garden into the dust of the world beyond. "Till
dinner-time--remember!"


                          *   *   *   *   *


Remember! The memory of those words came back to her idly as she sate
clasping her baby to her breast, while Sonnie, wearied out with fear,
slept in her lap, and her one disengaged hand busied itself in fanning
a half-delirious man who lay on a string bed set in the close darkness.
Dinner time! Yes, it must be about dinner time, for through a chink in
the door you could see the sun flaring to his death in the west.

What had happened? She shuddered as she thought of it. What had come
first, of all the horrors of that long hot May day? She could not piece
it together. All that she knew was that someone had taken pity on the
women and the children. And that they were all huddled together in that
one room waiting till darkness should give a chance of escape; for the
hut was built against an old ruin through which some underground
passage gave upon ground not quite so sentry-warded as the barrack
square in front. She could hear the familiar words of command, the
clank of arms as they changed guard, and she shuddered again. Aye! the
women and children might be safe, even if the almost hopeless stratagem
failed; but what of the man--her husband--the only one, so far as she
knew, of all the officers of the regiment who had escaped the massacre
on the parade ground? How had he been saved? She scarcely knew. She
remembered his running back like a hare--yes! he, the bravest of
men--all bleeding and fainting, to gasp some words of almost hopeless
directions for her safety. And then old Imân Khân--yes! it had been
he--faithful old servant! Why had she not remembered before? For there
he was, his bald head bereft of its concealing turban, keeping watch
and ward at the door.

What a ruffian he looked, so--poor, faithful Imân Khân!

Hush! a voice from outside, a reply from the bald-headed watcher
within. More questions, more replies, both growing in urgency in
appeal. Then a pause and retreating footsteps.

"What is it, Imân Khân?" she questioned dully, as the old man stole
over to her and laid his forehead in the dust.

"What this slave has feared, has waited for all the hours," he
whispered, whimperingly. "They know--Huzoor----" he pointed to the bed.
"Or, at least, they have suspicion that a man is here. And they must
search--they will search--or kill. I have sent them to await the
Huzoor's decision."

She stood up, still clasping her babe, the boy slipping, half-asleep,
to the ground, and looked round at those other women--those other
children who had lost their all. And hers lay here....

"They must come," she said in a muffled voice. Then she bent over her
husband. "Will!" she whispered, bringing him back from confused,
half-restful dreams, "the Sepoys say they must search--or--or
kill--them all. We will hide you--if we can."

If we can! Was it possible, she wondered, feeling dead, dead at heart,
as the door opened wide, letting in the sunlight and showing a group of
tense womanhood, a bed whereon, huddled up asleep or awake, lay the
children deftly disposed to hide all betraying contours.

"Huzoor! salaam!" said the tall _subahdâr_, drawing himself up to
attention, and the search party of four followed suit.

How long that minute seemed. How interminable the sunlight. Ah! would
no one shut out the light, and why did Sonnie move his hand?...

"Huzoor! Salaam!"

Oh! God in heaven! were they going? Was the door closing? Was the
blessed darkness coming?...

It was utter darkness, as, her strength giving way, she fell on her
knees beside the bed, burying her face upon her children, her husband.

"Will! Will!" she whispered.

A faint sigh came from the watching women. So Fate had been kind to
her--her only....

One who had seen her husband shot down before her very eyes rose
slowly, and taking her baby from the bed, moved away, rocking it in her
arms almost fiercely. So, in the grim intensity of those first seconds,
the sound of further parley at the door escaped them.

Then, in the ensuing pause, old Imân Khân's bald head was in the dust
once more, his voice, scarce audible, seemed to fill the room.

"Huzoor! They have seen. He must go forth or they will kill--all."

The words, half-heard, seemed to rouse the wounded man to his manhood.
He raised himself in bed, he staggered to his feet; so stood, swaying
unsteady, yet still a man. "All right--I'll go--Let me out,
quick--quick----"

But someone stood between him and the door. It was Ensign Hector Clive.
His face was pale as death, his hands twitched nervously, but in the
semi-darkness his eyes blazed, his chin looked square and set.

"No, sir," he said quietly, "this is my chance. Look here! I ran
and hid in the passage-way when the others--died like men--I couldn't
help it--perhaps if they had had the chance I had--but that's
nothing!--nothing! I heard--I understand their lingo. They don't know
you're here, sir--only a man--let me be a man--for once. It is my
chance----"

His eyes sought the Colonel's wife in bitter appeal.

Swift as thought she answered it. Her hand was on her husband's
shoulder to hold him back, for she saw in a flash what others might not
see--a martyrdom of life, soul warring with frail flesh, for this boy.

"Let him go, Will," she whispered hoarsely. "As he says, it is his
chance."

There was a faint stir amongst the listeners. The Colonel shook himself
free from his wife's detaining hand. The code of conventional honour
was his, in all its maddening lack of comprehension.

"Stand back, please--and you, Mr. Clive, obey orders--I--I----" He
reeled and would have fallen, but for the bed against which he sank.
His wife was on her knees beside him.

"Let him go, Will. It is his chance, give it him, for God's sake!"

There was no answer. Unconsciousness had come to bring the silence
which gives consent, and she stood up again, stepped to the lad and
laid her lips on his forehead.

"Thank you, dear--in the name of all these--thanks for a brave deed."

The blood surged up to his face. A boyish look of sheer triumph
transfigured it as he paused for an instant to throw off his coat and
tighten his waistband.

"I shall have my chance, too," he cried exultantly, "for I was always a
good runner at school!"

Aye! a good runner, indeed! With the wild whoop of a schoolboy at play,
he was across the barrack square, untouched. Once over that low wall in
front and he would be in cover. He rose to the leap lightly, and for an
instant he showed in all the pathetic beauty of immature strength, all
the promise of what might lie hidden in the future, against the red
flare of the sunlit sky, against the glorious farewell which is true
herald of the rising of another day. Then he threw his arms skywards
and fell, shot through the heart.

He had had his chance!




                           THE FLATTERER FOR GAIN


Prem Lal, census enumerator, raised to that fleeting dignity by
reason of his being a "middle fail" student (as those who have at
least gone up for the Middle School examination style themselves in
India), paused in his ineffectual attempt to write with a fine steel
nib on the fluttering blue paper held--without any backing--in his left
hand, and, all unconsciously, gave the offending pen that sidelong,
blot-scattering flick which the native reed requires when it will not
drive properly.

Then he coughed a deprecating cough, and covered the previous
act--natural enough in one whose ancestors, being of the clerkly caste,
had spent long centuries in acquiring and transmitting it--by
displaying his Western culture in another way.

"Now for the next 'adult' or 'adulteress' in this house," he said
pompously in polyglot.

The grammatical correctness of his genders passed unchallenged by his
half-curious, half-awe-stricken audience. The blue paper, ruled,
scheduled, classified, contained an unknown world to that patriarchal
party assembled in the sleepy sunshine which streamed down on the roof
set--far above the city, far above Western civilisation--under the
sleepy sunshiny sky; so it might well hold stranger things to its
environment than untrustworthy feminines.

"There is the grandfather's father, Chiragh Shah, Huzoor," replied a
man of about thirty who, standing midway between the real householder
and his grandsons, had assumed the responsibility of spokesmanship in
virtue of his possibly combining old wisdom and new culture. He used
the honorific title "Huzoor" not to Prem Lal--whom he gauged scornfully
to be a mere schoolboy, and a Hindoo idolator to boot--but to the blue
paper which represented the alien rulers, who were numbering the people
for reasons best known to themselves.

A stir came from the door chink behind which the females of the family
were decorously hiding their indignant anxiety.

"Yea! let the old man go forth," shrilled a voice to which none in that
household ever said nay. "He is past his time--let them take his brains
if they will, and leave virtuous women alone. Who are we, to be
registered as common evil walkers?"

Even Prem Lal grew humble instantly.

"Nay! mother," he said apologetically, in unconscious oblivion of his
own previous classification. "The Sirkar suggests no impropriety. We
seek but to know such trivials as age--sex--if idiot, cripple,
spinster, adult or adult----"

"Let Chiragh Shah go forth to him," interrupted the hidden oracle with
opportune decision. "Lo! his midday opium is still in his brain. Let it
bring peace to him and the eater thereof."

The chink widened obediently, disclosing a fluttering and scattering of
dim draperies. So, roused evidently from a doze in the inner darkness,
a very old man shuffled out into the sunshine, then stopped, blinking
at it as if, verily, he found himself in some new and unfamiliar world.

"The Sirkar hath sent for thee, grandad," bawled the appointed
spokesman in his ear. "They need----"

But the words were enough. The blank, dazed look passed into a sudden
alacrity which took years from the old body as it sat it a-trembling
with eagerness.

"The Sirkar," he echoed. "It is long since I, Chiragh Shah--long
since----" He relapsed as suddenly into dreams. His voice failed as if
following the suit of memory, but he supplied the lack of both by a
smile which spoke volumes.

For it was the smile of a sycophant as unblushingly false as the
teeth which it displayed--teeth which were square, dicelike blocks of
ivory, unvarying in size, strung together en a bold gold wire, and
hung--Heaven knows how--to his toothless gums.

"Sit down, _meeân-jee_," said the census enumerator, politely, for the
heart-whole artificiality of the smile admitted of no breach of
manners. "We seek but honourable names and ages."

So they brought the old man a quaint red lacquered stool, which
had once carried a certain dignity in its spindled back rail by
reason of its having come into the family with some far dead and gone
bride--Chiragh Shah's own, mayhap!--and there he sate, still with that
look of urbane smiling alacrity rejuvenating his wrinkled face.

There was a hint, beneath the semi-transparency of his frayed white
muslin robe, cut in a bygone fashion, of very worn, very old brocade
fitting closely to the very thin, very old body, and the embroidered
cap set back from his high, narrow forehead showed a glint here and
there of frayed old worn gold thread.

"His name is Chiragh Shah," yawned the spokesman, adding in a bawl,
"How old art thou, dâdâ--the Sirkar is asking?"

There was a little pause, and wintry though the sun was, its shine
seemed to filter straight through all things, denying a visible shadow
even to the blue paper.

"How old?" came the urbane voice, speaking with a long-lapsed precision
of polish. "That is as God wills and my lord chooses."

Prem Lal glanced doubtfully at the schedules. They did not provide for
such politeness, so he appealed mutely to the spokesman, who replied by
roundabout assertion:

"He was of knowledgeable years when the city fell--wast thou not,
dâdâ?" The explanatory shout brought keen intelligence to the hearer.

"Aye! it was from the palace bastion I watched the English. Half the
city watched them that 14th of September...." Here once more voice and
memory lapsed awhile. But Prem Lal's history was at least equal to the
more recent event of that memorable date, so his pen grew glib in
ciphering. "Taking knowledgeable age as ten," he commenced rapidly,
"with deduction of years 1857 from present epoch 1881----"

His face darkened. "He has the appearance of more age than
thirty-five," he began dubiously, when the suave old voice picked up
the lost thread of recollection.

"Lake sahib came to our court two days after, and the King, being
blind, saw not that the English face was no more merciful than the
French face which had been driven away, so there were rejoicings."

"He means the day which began the hundred years of tyranny," suggested
the spokesman; and Prem Lal's pen had already substituted 1805 for
1857, when the voice of her who had to be obeyed came sternly from the
chink. "Put him down as a hundred, boy!" it said scornfully. "Meat is
tough when the sacrifice is past its prime, anyhow, so what does it
matter?"

The next question presented no difficulty. No one in that house could
be aught but a descendant of the Prophet, so the answer "Syyed" sprang
to every lip with chill, almost scornful, pride.

"Profession or trade," continued Prem Lal, mechanically; "gold-thread
embroiderer, I suppose, like the rest of you."

It was a natural supposition, seeing that the high-bred, in-bred
household had for years past--since, in fact, courts were abolished in
Delhi--taken to this, the trade of so many ousted officials.

"Huzoor! no!" replied the spokesman with a yawn, for the proceedings
were becoming uninteresting to him. "He is before that. He does
nothing--he never did anything."

"Gentleman at large," hesitated on Prem Lal's pen; there an ephemeral
conscientiousness born of his ephemeral dignity made him appeal to the
old man himself.

Chiragh Shah smiled courteously. His hands trembled themselves tip to
tip.

"My profession," he echoed. "Surely I am Chaplaoo--of inheritance and
choice," he added alertly.

"Chaplaoo!" That was clear enough to Prem Lal in the vernacular, but
how was it to be translated for the blue paper which must be written in
English as an exposition of learning that might lead to further
employment?

Being prepared for such emergencies by a pocket dictionary, he looked
the word up--a proceeding which revived interest in the audience,
notably behind the chink, whence the magisterial voice was heard
remarking that it was no wonder the Sirkar wanted brains if it was so
crassly ignorant as not to know what chaplaoo meant!

This flurried Prem Lal into premature decision. "Chaplaoo," he
quoted under his breath, "a fawner--ha! I see! One who keepers the
fawn--forester--huntsman--Am I not right?" he translated with a
preparative flick of the steel pen.

The even ivory smile was clouded by an expression too blank for
resentment.

"The Sirkar mistakes. This slave kept no animals."

Prem Lal dived hurriedly into further equivalents.
"Parasite--backbiter--one who bites backs! Ah! I see--bug--etc."

"This slave, as he has said, kept no kind of animals whatever,"
repeated Chiragh Shah, with a suave, unconscious dignity which appeased
even the rising storm of virtuous indignation behind the chink. "He
was--if the Sirkar prefers the title--Chapar-qunatya, by inheritance
and choice."

The rolling Arabic word had a soothing sound, and a hush fell with the
sunshine even on Prem Lal's search after a common factor between East
and West.

"Toad eater! eater of toads----" he began with doubt in the suggestion;
"lick spittle--one who licks the spittle?"

"Eater of toads, licker of spittle," shrilled the voice of the chink.
"Dost come here defiling an honourable house--and I who purvey its
food--with such vile calumny--I----"

"Peace, mother," soothed a softer voice; "such things do no harm save
to the speaker. What you spit at the sky falls on your own face!"

"Aye!" assented a ruder voice, "and is he not a Kyasth (clerk)--lie he
must or his belly will burst."

The word "lie" gave the agitated enumerator a fresh clue, and the pages
of the dictionary fluttered as if in a full gale.

"Lie--liar--slanderer----"

There was no connection in his tone; but the suggestion being at least
plausible to his audience, the question was referred loudly to old
Chiragh Shah, who was beginning to nod with combined sunshine and opium
drams.

"Lie?" he asked, with a return of that swift alacrity. "Surely, I lied
always. Yea! from the beginning to the end."

He used the high-sounding Arabic word for liar, and so sent Prem Lal
a--fluttering once more. Ere he had lit on the correct gutteral, old
Chiragh Shah's set smile had changed into a real one. The slack muscles
of his neck stiffened; he flung out his right hand airily.

"Hush!" said the two smallest boys on the roof in sudden interest;
"dâdâ is going to talk."

He was.

"Lies!" he began, and there was tone in the old voice, "and wherefore
not if it is a real lie and not a bungle? But I never was a bungler. I
know my profession too well--even at the last--yea, at the very end
they had to come to me for artifice--for subterfuge. It was the last
lie--to count as a real lie."

He paused, one of the boys had crept round to him and now laid a
compelling hand of entreaty on the old man.

"Tell us of it, dâdâ."

The spokesman looked at the enumerator as if for orders.

"It may elucidate the meanings," muttered the Middle-fail to himself.

So in the stillness of that sunshiny roof, set so far above the
workaday world, they sate listening.

"Yea! it was the last lie that was worth the telling. Yet I was past my
prime like the court itself. For none, save those who saw, knew the
heart-burnings, the bitterness of those last years. King but in name,
the very court officials drifting away to other allegiance. And Lake
sahib had been so full of promise on that first September day, when the
Frenchman was driven away because, forsooth! he had made the blind Shah
Alum a prisoner in his own palace----" There was a pause in the thin
old cadences, and a flitting shadow fell on the sun-saturate listeners
from a wheeling kite overhead.

"And what was Bahadur Shah but a prisoner, too? What matter--the
Huzoors gave him bread after their fashion and he was unfaithful to the
salt of it. That was not well--one must be loyal even to a lie! So
after the mad midsummer dream of recovered kingship in the palace--such
a mad dream--we who dreamed it knew at the time that we were
dreaming--came that second September day when the English returned
to Delhi. We did not watch them, then; we were hiding in the
tombs--Humayon's tomb without the wall.

"It was the night after Hudson _sahib bahadur_ had wiled away the King
by fair promises--aya! the Huzoor knew the trick of those well--but the
Princes were still hiding--and many a better man, too.

"My son for one. He was wounded to the death. Ah! I knew it--though the
brave lad--he was the son of mine old age--steadied his breath and
smiled when I spoke to him. But there was little leisure for words with
treachery to right and treachery to left, and none to trust fairly. For
the world had changed even then, and there were but one or two of my
kind left, and I was out of favour. Too old for the new court--too old
for new pleasures. And the young Prince--lo! how he used to laugh at my
worn flatteries--had many pleasures--so many of them that he took some
of them from other folks' lives; thus he had foes. Aye! but friends,
too, for he came nearer to kingliness than his brothers. And my son
loved him.

"So when the danger came, and I knew by chance of the plot to kill the
Prince as he slept, and gain the reward set on him by the English, I
had no choice. Yet I dare trust no one in the skulking crowd which
crept about the shadows of the old tomb. In those days it was every one
for himself, and the Prince had scant following at best. And he lay
drunk with wine and women, out of bravado partly to the skulkers--in
one of the half-secret upper rooms. But I knew which, and I remember it
so well. The grey spear point of the distant Kut showed through its
open arch.

"And below, in a far nook of the crypt, where there was a secret
swinging panel in the red sandstone wall, known only to the old, my son
lay dying.

"He steadied his breath as I stooped over him, and whispered that he
would soon be fighting for his Prince again.

"'Soon, my son,' I answered, waiting as he smiled. For I knew the
silence was at hand--silence from all things save the breathing that
would only steady into death.

"We, my servant and I, lifted him easily. He was but a lad, though he
would have grown to greater stature than the Prince. His head lay so
contentedly on my shoulder as I went backward up the stair, telling
those who stood aside to let us pass, that he was better and craved the
fresher air of the roof. 'Better? Aye! he is better, or soon will be,
old fool,' said one with a laugh. Then clattered noisily after his
companions, so noisily that the echo of the winding staircase sent
their scornful mirth back to me. 'He will be dead--like someone he
followed--by morning.'

"Before morning, if I did not fail, thought I, silently, as, searching
the shadows, we sought the Prince's hidden room. There was a youth ever
with the Prince--a baby-faced, frightened, womanly thing--yet faithful
as far as in him lay. Him, I caught by the throat, 'They would kill
thee, too,' I said; 'better take the chance of life. If fate be kind,
ere dawn discovers the deceit, _he_ will be fit to fly.'

"So after my servant and I, wailing at our lack of wisdom, had carried
the Prince down, face covered as one to whom worse sickness had come
suddenly, I crept to the upper room again. It was growing late, but the
grey spear-head of the Kut still showed beyond the open arch as I
covered the lad's face, lest, for all his gay dress, the murderers
might see too much.

"'Dream thou art fighting for the Prince, sonling!' I said, knowing he
was past even the steadying of his breath for an answer; but the smile
had lingered on his face.

"Then I covered my face also, and, bidding the baby-faced one escape to
the crypt as soon as it was possible, sate as a servant might have
sate, at the turning of the ways from the stair head.

"Would those who were to come be familiar or strange? I wondered. The
latter, most likely, since Chiragh Shah, the Chaplaoo, had long since
passed from court life, almost from remembrance.

"They were strange; as they challenged me, I drew the cloth from my
face without fear.

"'The Prince's room!' they cried, dagger-point at my breast. But that
could not be. There must be no suspicion, only certainty, only soothed
certainty. 'I have been waiting to show it to my lords,' I answered.
'Lo! he sleeps sound--yea! he sleeps sound, his face toward the Kut.'

"So, with smooth words, I led them in the dark----"

The memory of the darkness seemed to fall as darkness itself on the old
brain, and Chiragh Shah sate silent in the sunshine for a few seconds.
When he spoke again, it was as if years had passed. "It was the last
lie that was worth the telling," he said, almost triumphantly.

"And a good lie, too," came the shrill voice from behind the door
chink. "See you, boy!--call the old man by his right name in your
paper, or may God's curse light on you for ever!"

Thus adjured, Prem Lal, who, throughout the whole tale, had been
fluttering his dictionary from one synonym to another, suggested
sycophant; that was, he explained, one who flatters and lies for
personal profit.

"Profit!" echoed the voice. "Small profit dâdâ gained. Was not the
Prince killed with his brothers next day by Hudson Sahib; so there was
no one left even to reward the old man?"

"Save God," suggested Prem Lal, piously trying to escape somehow from
the dilemma.

"And there is gain, and gain," admitted the spokesman, combining new
and old, east and west.

"Hush!" said one of the two small boys again; "dâdâ is going to
talk--he may know----"

So once more the old voice rose in unconscious apology for the
difficulty of condensing what etomologists call his life history into a
census paper.

"Yea, it was good, and hard--yet not so hard as the first. _That_ never
left me, despite the long years."

It seemed, indeed, as if it had not, for something of childlike
complaint came into the old voice. "It was my first day at court.
Mother had cut my father's khim-khab robe--crimson with gold
flowering--to fit me, despite her tears. Her eyes were heavy with them
when she kissed me; but I had no fear for all I was so young. I knew
the women's bread depended on my tongue--though it was my heritage also
to be Chaplaoo.

"And the King was pleased. Mother had tied my turban so tall and he
laughed at that. It was out in the garden, he under the gilt canopy,
the nobles round and beyond the flowers, and birds fluttering among the
roses.

"And I was standing beside the king, and he was laughing--for I knew my
part.

"Then the fluttering came closer, closer, and lo! a bird settled on my
wrist. It was Gul-afrog--I had left it with my sister, but it had
followed me--for we loved each other. So, on my wrist it sate joyful,
and salaamed, as I had taught it, drooping its pretty wings.

"Then the King cried, 'How, now, whose pretty bird is this?' and
someone laid a warning hand upon my shoulder. But I knew before what I
must say if I was to stand in father's place. I knew! I knew!

"'It is yours, my king.'

"So I said, kneeling at his feet! 'It is yours, it is yours,' and
Gul-afrog had been with me since it fell out of the bulbul nest in the
rose tree. Then they brought a golden cage ..." The old man sate
staring out into the sunshine in silence, and only the littlest of the
two boys wept softly.

"We will call him 'Flatterer for Gain.'" said Prem Lal, in desperate
decision, and perhaps the description came as near to old Chiragh
Shah's profession as was possible in a census schedule.




                          A MAIDEN'S PRAYER


"That is over! Thanks to Kâli Ma!" sighed Ramabhai, fanning herself
vigorously as the last man shambled, a trifle sheepishly, from the
inner apartment. She--was a stoutish Bengâli lady, with red
betel--stained lips and smooth bandeaux of shiny black hair.
Good-looking, good-natured, at the moment distinctly excited as she
went on garrulously. "Muniya! down with the curtain, there is no
further use for it now that crew has gone! And to think that the master
will have to give each one of them five rupees! And for what? Forsooth!
for the first seeing of such a bride as not one of them ever saw
before. Lo! Shibi, marriage-monger!" Here she turned accusingly on one
of the women who were busy unveiling themselves, chattering the while
with shrill voices. "Hast no mind at all? Thou mightst have found newer
words for thy description of my daughter!--'beautiful as a full moon,
symmetrical as a cart-wheel, graceful as a young goose.' What are these
for perfection? And thou didst use the same last week for Luchi Devi's
girl, who is pock-marked and blind of an eye! But there! 'What's a fowl
to one who has swallowed a sheep.' Parbutti,"--here she transferred her
attentions to a young girl who was seated on a cushion resting her face
in her henna-dyed hands, as if she felt dazed or tired--"an thou hast a
grain of sense have a care of that nose-ring thy paternal auntie lent
for the occasion or there will be flies in the pease porridge--there
always is in that family. Yea! it is well over; and thank the gods, the
priest found good omen in the morning watches, so I have not to dine
the creatures. Fish curry and kid pillau is too much to pile on the
getting of a trousseau; yet one must have meats at a wedding feast, if
one in Sakta; and the bridegroom's folk are strict. As for clothes, I
tell you, sisters, that 'boycotts' is well enough to play with every
day, but when it comes to weddings and tinsel, 'tis a different matter.
Kâli Ma! what a price for _kulabatoon_! Parbutti! an thou canst not
remember that thou hast on thee four hundred rupees worth of Benares
_khim-kob_, go put on the old Manchester. Thank Heaven!' Boycotts' is
not so old yet, but one has stores left to come and go upon! Yea! Yea!
A wedding is a great strain on a mother; and then there is the parting
with my daughter, too--my sweeting, my little lump of delight----"

Here Ramabhai discreetly dissolved into regulation tears, mingled with
sharp sobs and little outcries. It came easily, for she was really
devoted to Parbutti, the little bride, who, in truth, looked
distractingly pretty, all swathed in scarlet gold-flowered silk gauze,
and hung with jewels galore.

Her grave open-eyed face looked, perhaps, a trifle stupid and
obstinate, but there could be no question of its beauty.

"Mother!" she said seriously, "there is a smell of smoke--the tall one
in the black coat smelt of it, and it is defilement. Had we not better
pacify the gods?"

"Hark to her!" exclaimed Ramabhai, drying her facile tears
triumphantly. "Saw you ever such a saint? He who gets my Parbutti is
certain of salvation."

Parbutti sate silent. She did not even blush, though that is allowed to
a Bengâli bride. But for all her outward calm she was inwardly
quivering all over; and small wonder if she was! After long years
spent, not like an English girl, in ignorance and innocence of
matrimony, but in matter-of-fact expectation of it, that one great
event in woman's life was close at hand. It had been delayed almost
beyond propriety by the difficulty of finding a high-caste husband. For
her father, though a Kulin Brahman, was sufficiently westernised not to
hold with the caste habit of marrying a daughter to what may be called
a professional husband: that is, to a Kulin who already possesses a
score or two of wives. A suitable student had, however, been found at
last, and the feminine portion of the household had plunged
hysterically into all the suggestive ceremonials of a high-class
Bengâli marriage. Even the widows let their blighted fancies dwell on
kisses and blisses; so, feeling vicariously the sensuous pleasures of
bridedom, vied with happier women in drugging the girl with sweets and
scents, and secret whisperings of secret delights. The whole atmosphere
was enervating, depraving; but Parbutti took all the gigglings and
titterings gravely as her right. For this was the consummation of her
hopes ever since, as a child of five, she had been taught to worship
the gods, to pray for an amorous husband, and curse any woman who might
try to win love from her.

"Look! how the little marionette scowls over it," the women had
tittered as they watched her, a bit of a naked baby, going through the
formula of the Brata, as it is called. "Truly no co-wife will dare to
enter her house." And certainly her energy was prodigious.


      "Mata! Mata! Ma! Keep my co-wife far--
       Shiv! Shiv! Shiv! Grant she may not live--
       Pot! Pot! Pot! Boil her hard and hot--
       Broom! Broom! Broom! Sweep her from the room--
       Mud! Mud! Mud! Moist thee with her blood--
       Bell! Bell! Bell! Ring her soul to hell--"


and so on through every common and uncommon object on God's earth--and
beneath it!

The childish body had swayed to the rhythm of the chant; the childish
voice had risen clear in denunciation; the childish soul had given its
consent to every wish; for Parbutti was nothing if not serious.

The very cantrips of the Sakta cult to which her parents--and some
fifty millions of other Bengâlis--belonged, were to her so many
indispensable realities.

She, as an unmarried girl, ate her plateful of sacrificial meat
contentedly, though her mother refused it. She sate wide-eyed, solemn,
acquiescent, when after long fasting the whole family waited in the
dead of the night till the auspicious moment for sacrifice arrived, and
in the silence the only sound was an occasional piteous, half-wondering
bleat of the miserable victim--a pet goat, mayhap! She did not wink an
eye when the consecrated scimitar curved downwards, a jet of red, red
bubbling blood spurted into the dim light, and a sort of sob from the
dying and the living alike told that atonement was made.

That sort of thing did not make her or any of the other women quiver;
yet they were affectionate, emotional, kind-hearted. "Without shedding
of blood is no remission of sin," is a Pauline text; but it was theirs
also. Graven by age-long iteration in their limited minds and lives was
the dogma that the Blood is the Life thereof. There was but one
Sacrament; the Sacrament of Blood. Marriage was secondary, but cognate
to it, of course; that was because it was the Gate to Birth and Death,
through which none pass without the Great Sacrifice. So they clothed
the bride in scarlet, and smeared her forehead with vermilion. It was
this stability of inner thought which enabled the women to be so
untiring in their variants of its outward application. All the bathings
and anointings and soothsayings had this unchangeable dogma as
foundation. So the round of ritual went on, the drums throbbed in
unending rhythm, the conches blared in deafening yells, the whole house
was full of the rustlings and bustlings of womenfolk. It must surely
have been a wedding which made Babu Kishub Chander Sen write the
ponderous dictum: "Man is a noun in the objective case, governed by the
active verb woman."

Parbutti's father, being a sensible man, removed himself as much as
possible from the ebullient atmosphere; perhaps it was as well, since
he was a light in the Nationalist party, and the ceremonials of a Sakta
wedding do not go well with talk of political rights and wrongs, of
education, and equality, and exotic tyranny.

Even Parbutti's solemnity was not quite proof against the silly
suggestiveness, the almost indecent jokes and tricks, the hysterical
enhancing of emotions with which she was surrounded.

She felt it a relief when, the guests having retired for some sleep,
she was free to perform her daily devotion at the shrine downstairs.

It was a quaint place, this shrine dedicated to Mai Kâli in her
terrific form--in other words, to Our Lady of Pain--the Woman ever in
travail of mind and body--the Ewig Weiblichkeit which is never
satisfied. It formed on the river side of the house, a sort of low
basement, private in so far that a flight of steep stone steps led down
to it from the lowest storey of the house, public in that it opened on
to some bathing steps. But few people came thither except on certain
festivals; so Parbutti, still in her wedding finery, stole down to it
confidently. She liked the small, dim, arched chamber where you could
only see Mai Kâli as a blotch of crimson in her dark niche. And as you
crept down the stairs behind that niche, and looked through the
crisscross iron bars that filled up the arch, "She" showed nothing but
a black shadow against the brilliance beyond. Parbutti used often to
stand for an instant or two on the cornerwise landing of the stairs to
look before passing up. Everything showed black but the low square of
the outside doorway; and even the pigeons when they flew across it
seemed flitting shadows on the light. To-day she was in a hurry, so she
squatted down promptly at a respectful distance from the image, and
began to smear the floor from a goglet of red paint she had brought
with her. And as she did so she chanted:


       "Om! Om! Kâli Ma!--
        Ruler, Thou, of blackest night--
        Dark, Dark, not a Star--
        In Thy Heaven Kâli Ma!--
        Thou who lovest the flesh of man--
        By this blood I pray thee ban--
        Aliens in Hindustan--
        Kill them, Kâli Ma!--
        Drink their blood and eat their flesh--
        Thou shalt have it fresh and fresh--
        Lo! devour it! lick thy lips--
        Flesh in lumps and blood in sips--
        Stain thyself with sacred red--
        Make them lifeless, dead! dead! dead!
        Blessed Kâli Ma!
               Ho-o-m! 'Phut!"


The last two words were spoken with relish, not only because they were
supposed to be the most potent part of the charm, but because they lent
themselves to dramatic effect. _Ho-om_ being given soft and low; _phut_
explosively. The result being suggestive of an angry tom-cat. But the
rest of the doggerel came slackly, for Parbutti was not much interested
in it. It was not her curse at all, but one she had promised her
schoolboy brother, Govinda, to say every evening. For many reasons;
chiefly, it is to be feared, because someone else, at present nameless,
was a class-fellow of the said Govinda's. But everyone knew, that if
there was one compelling prayer on earth it was that of a maiden bride;
even Mai Kâli could not resist it. And the petition was a fair one. Who
wanted aliens in Hindustani? Not she! Why! their presence made your
menkind do unspeakable things, so that life became wearisome with
pacifying the gods. Imagine not being able to kiss ...

Voices close at hand, made her leap to her feet, and gain the staircase
like a frightened hare. Then, of course, being a girl, she paused to
peep through the grating.

Surely it was Govinda! Then, she need not have run away! No! he had a
tall lad with him! Parbutti's heart beat to suffocation. Was it
possible? Could it be? Was it--well! what she had been taught to
consider her prayer, her pilgrimage, her paradise; that is, her duty
and her pleasure combined? Stay! there was another lad--short! And yet
another--middle-sized!

This was disconcerting; but perhaps if she listened a little she might
find out. So she stood still as a mouse, all ears, praying in her
inmost heart it might be the tall one.

Though they spoke in Bengâli, they used such a plentitude of English
words that it was difficult for her to understand fully what they said.
It was not all their fault, as it arose largely from the fact that the
ideas they wished to express, being purely Western, had no Eastern
equivalents. Parbutti, however, had been accustomed to this sort of
talk, as she had been a great favourite of her father's, and till the
last year or so, had often sate on his knee as he entertained his
friends.

So she listened patiently to pæans about Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity, mingled with darkling threats--threats which must destroy
all three by depriving some brother of the Liberty of Life or at best
of an arm or a leg!

For they were only silly schoolboys, who, but for an alien ideal of
education, would have been learning, as their father had learnt,
unquestioning, unqualified obedience at a Guru's feet. Learning it
probably with tears, tied up in a sack with a revengeful tom-cat, or
with a heavy brick poised on the back of the neck for livelong hours;
such being the approved punishments for the faintest disobedience.
Small wonder then, if the organism accustomed to this immemorial
control, runs a bit wild when it finds itself absolutely free to do and
think as it likes.

These particular boys were very angry, apparently, because some one of
their number had been forced to obey something or someone. It was
tyranny. The Mother-land and their religion was outraged. They were all
Bengâli Brahmans; so Kâli worshippers by birth, and of the Sakta cult;
possibly of the Left-handed or Secret form of that cult. Anyhow they
talked big of Force being the one ruling principle by which men could
rule, of the true Saktas' or Tantriks' contempt for public opinion, of
their determination to show the world that the Tantras had been given
by the gods in order to destroy the oppressors of men. So, "_Jai_
Anarchism! _Jai Kâli! Jai Bhairavi! Jai Banda Materam!_"

It was a sad farrago of nonsense; Western individualism dished up
skilfully by professional agitators in a garb of Eastern mysticism; but
they talked it complacently, while Parbutti, still as a mouse, told
herself it must be the tall one; he had such a nice voice.

Her hopes gained confidence when he lingered behind with Govinda after
the others departed, and began speaking in a lower voice. Could he be
talking about her? Ever and always that came as the uppermost thought.
Then consideration told her this was not possible; no respectable
bridegroom could talk of his bride to another--not even if he also were
a Kulin and a brother. What was it then, about which they were so
mysterious when there was nobody nigh?--here a twinge of compunction
shot through her--at least nobody they could know about.

At last, her ears becoming accustomed to the strain, she caught one
sentence: "My father was Mai Kâli's priest here"; so by degrees
gathered that there was some secret receptacle somewhere, and that the
tall youth wished to hide something.

The something appeared to be in what Parbutti had supposed to be a
hooded cage such as students often carry about with their pet
_avitovats_ or fighting quails inside. But this one contained a square
box, which the boy removed with great care, and then, before Parbutti
had grasped what he was doing, he was round at the back of the carven
image, kneeling with his back towards her, and fumbling at the gilt
wooden drapery about Mai Kâli's waist; Govinda meanwhile keeping a
look-out at the door.

How close he was! If she put out a hand she could touch him--she
thrilled all over at the thought! Too close at any rate for her to
move; besides, she must see what happened.

Ye gods! The drapery slid up! Mai Kâli was hollow!

"If aught happens to me," said the nice voice solemnly, "I leave this
in thy charge, oh! Govinda Ram, Kulin. Thou art the only other living
soul who knows of it. And see thou use it as it should be used. A
cocoanut full for a bomb. It requires no fuse. The concussion is
sufficient if the hand is bold."

The box deposited, the panel slid back again, and the tall lad rising
from his knees stepped to the front again. As he did so, Parbutti
caught a glimpse of his face. It was beautiful as the young
Bala-Krishna, and the whole soul and body of her went out to him--her
hand stole through the bars to touch the air in which he had stood--the
happy air which had touched him.

So absorbed was she in her joy that she did not realise what was going
on until the sound of their voices brought her back to reality. Then
she recognised that they were repeating the vow of secrecy which is
imposed on all initiates to the Tantrik cult. "I swear by the Eternal
Relentless and Living Power I worship never to divulge the Secret, but
to bury it deeply in silence and ever preserve it inviolate and
inviolable. I will conceal it as the water in a cocoanut is concealed.
I will be a Kaula internally, a Saiva externally, and a Vaishnava when
talking at public meetings." Then they branched off into that of the
new secret political society which underlies the old religious
mysteries. And Parbutti listened with growing fear, for this was
sheer straightforward cursing of informers and lukewarm supporters and
spies--and--and----

If they should go on to her? If he should curse her?

The long stillness had told on her nerves--she felt as if she must
scream, must do something to prevent the dreadful sequence going on and
on....

"And cursed be they who listen and----"

The voices were checked by a passionate cry--

"Curse me not! Curse me not! I swear! I, Parbutti, swear to keep
faith!"

Then, terrified at everything, even her own temerity, she turned and
fled.

There was little leisure allowed her for thought in the women's
apartment that night, for each one vied with the other in devising
cantrips, most of them undescribable, to secure for her a truly
uxorious husband; but one thing beat through her brain. Would he, could
he--if it _were_ he--be angry with her? Surely not! She had sworn, and
she would keep her oath. Yes! she would keep it faithfully.

So the day dawned and another tumult of rejoicing rose around her.

In view of the delay in her betrothals it had been arranged to crowd in
the ceremonials as closely as possible, so as to expedite the actual
marriage, and everybody was running about, conches were blowing, women
were giggling and laughing as the professional guests of the male sex
cracked doubtful jests while they awaited the arrival of the
bridegroom.

And then came a sudden hush. Something must have happened. What was it?

Parbutti, sitting apart swathed in her wedding scarlet, was too dazed
to notice the pause at first, until low, and whimpering, an
unmistakable woman's wail rose amid the garlands and tinsels, the paper
flowers, the swinging lanterns.

She started to her feet--was someone dead?

In a way, the news that had come was worse than death. _That_ was an
act of God to be accepted with what resignation could be mustered. But
this? What! They had arrested a bridegroom on his wedding day!--and
Govinda, too, the son of the house! What! Those boys--they could not be
guilty! It was only the tyranny of the hated police. They could not be
mixed up with Anarchists. So said some of the men; but others held
their peace and looked sinister, while all the women wept and wailed,
and called on Mai Kâli to avenge the sacrilege. Only Parbutti sate very
still, very silent. She knew something that the others did not know,
but the knowledge only increased her blind resentment, only aggravated
her blind despair.

He had been filched from her--if it was he. She was too dulled by
disappointment at first to do more than realise her loss, and the
thought of her oath of fealty did not come to her at all until
after three months' needless delay in trying the conspiracy case
against some forty students in the college--a delay due entirely to the
hair-splitting efforts of the counsel for the defence--Govinda settled
it for himself by dying in prison of autumnal fever. His had never been
a good life; he had almost died of it the year before; he might have
died of it at home. But the loss of a son, even when he is not the only
one, is a grievous loss to a Hindu household, and it brought enhanced
and almost insensate anger to every member of it; except to Parbutti,
who went about her household duties calmly, almost stupidly.

Then came the final blow. The bridegroom--was it _he?_--she wondered
dully--shot himself with a revolver smuggled in to him by a woman, a
young and pretty woman full of patriotism and poetry, a woman brought
up on Western lines, who was almost worshipped by the Nationalist party
of unrest.

Parbutti heard the tale, still calm to outward appearance. She heard
women's voices, full of curiosity, tell of the deed of patriotism, as
it was called: she heard them wonder what the woman agitator was really
like, and say that Kâli Ma would surely, ere long, rise up in Her Power
and smite the M'llechas hip and thigh.

And then they looked at her and shook their heads. Neither maid, wife,
nor widow, it would be more difficult than ever to find fresh
betrothals for her. Whereupon Ramabhai wept as she had wept before with
sharp sobs and little outcries. And once more Parbutti said nothing,
though she was quivering all over. It would be impossible to define her
feelings, they were such an admixture of hatred, and love, of fear, and
jealousy, and despair. And through it all came the question: "Was it
he?"--while, as a background, sheer physical disappointment stretched
every fibre of her mind and body almost to breaking joint.

So it went on until one day someone spoke to her almost as if she had
been a widow, and bade her do something almost menial.

She did it without a word. It was noon time and the house was deserted;
those who were in it being asleep. She sate for a while in the sunshine
of the courtyard, her hands on her knees, doing nothing. Then suddenly
she rose, and slipped into the room which Ramabhai used as a wardrobe.

When she emerged from it she was swathed in the scarlet and gold
Benares _khim-kob_ that had cost four hundred rupees, and her arms, her
neck, her feet, were hung with golden ornaments.

They tinkled as she made her way down the steep stone stairs to Kâli's
shrine. Dark, and still, and small, it lay, with a faint scent of
incense about it; for the previous day had been a festival, and many
folk had been to worship there.

But Kâli--Mai Kâli--would never have better worshipping than Parbutti
meant to give her. How the idea had come to the girl's mind who can
say; but dimly, out of her confused thoughts had grown the conviction
that something must be done. She was the only one, now, who knew the
secret; but it was useless in her hands. She could not go out and throw
bombs, as he doubtless would have thrown them had he lived; so giving
the Great Goddess the Blood for which she craved. Yes! he had meant to
do it, for were not the aliens accursed? Had they not killed him?

She mixed everything up hopelessly; Mai Kâli and the Sacrament of
Blood, her own loss and the public good; she felt angry, and weary, and
disappointed; she felt that she ought to do something, that she must
get Someone stronger than she was on her side, to do what she was
helpless to do.

So, confused, obstinate, she stepped behind the image, slid back the
panel, and took out the box. Then, producing a cocoanut shell from the
folds of her _sare_, she filled it carefully, methodically, and put
back the box carefully, methodically.

This done, she went to the front of the image, smeared the floor once
more with blood-red, and began her maiden's prayer--the prayer that is
infallible!


             "Om! Om! Kâli Ma!--
              Dark! Dark! Not a star--
              In my Heaven, Kâli Ma!--"


This time her voice was high and hard, for had not Mai Kâli to be
compelled--yea! even by the greatest of sacrifices?


          "Thou shalt have it fresh and fresh--
           Blood to drink, and lumps of flesh--"


Higher and higher grew the voice; it did not falter at all: not even
when at the final


                     "_Hoom phut_"


the girl, raising her hand on high, dashed the cocoanut she held upon
the ground boldly.

There was a faint flash, an instant explosion, a grinding noise as the
house rocked to its foundation, then steadied into quiescence.

But Parbutti had kept her promise to Mai Kâli, and to--_him_; for the
Goddess might have satisfied Her craving for Blood, Her desire for
Flesh amid the welter of broken stones and twisted grids, of shattered
wood-carving and torn Benares _khim-kob_, of jewels rent apart and
splintered bones, that was all remaining of Her shrine, Her image, and
Her worshipper.

Whether She will keep her part of the bargain is another matter.

But the Maiden's Prayer has been said, the Greatest of Sacrifices has
been made.




                       SILVER SPEECH AND GOLDEN
                               SILENCE


                                  I
                            SILVER SPEECH

"It is not only the interest of India--now the most considerable part
of the British Empire--but the credit and honour of the British nation
itself, will be decided by this division. We are to decide by this
judgment whether the crimes of individuals are to be turned into public
guilt and national ignominy; or whether this nation will convert the
very offences which have thrown a transient shade upon its government
into something that will reflect a permanent lustre upon the honour,
justice and humanity of the kingdom! My lords! There is yet another
consideration equal to those other two great interests I have
stated--those of our Empire, of our national character--something that,
if possible, comes more home to the hearts and feelings of every
Englishman--I mean the interests of our constitution itself, which is
deeply involved in this case."

In the audience, a young man, fair of face, blue of eye, looked up
suddenly, then muttered under his breath:

"Hard cheek! What the deuce has he got to do with the British
constitution?"

"Do be quiet, Tom!" blushed the girl who sat next him in a whisper;
"they'll hear you."

Tom relapsed into bored silence, and the stream of words went on--

"But the crimes we charge against him are not lapses, defects, errors
of common human frailty which, as we know and feel, we can allow for.
There are no crimes that have not arisen from passions which it is
criminal to harbour, no offences that have not their root in avarice,
rapacity, pride, insolence, ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of
temper; in short, in nothing that does not argue a total extinction of
all moral principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of
heart dyed ingrain with malice, vitiated, corrupted, gangrened to the
very core."

"Confound his Billingsgate!" murmured Tom Gordon softly. "What good
does it do--anybody?"

"H'sh!" came the warning feminine whisper; "his accent is really very
good."

Tom shifted uneasily, and once again the strenuous, eager voice,
struggling bravely against the harshness of the English language, was
the only sound held in the white walls of the Mission School at Ilmpur,
a little Punjab town set in a waste of sand. The hot sunshine slanted
across it in broad, golden rays from the upper windows, to lay broad,
yellow squares on the cool whitewash. Through the doors, set open to
the air on all sides, the same hot, yellow sunshine slanted in on the
upturned faces of the students, all bent--with elation in their
looks--on the prize English speaker, who was declaiming his set speech
out of Burke's famous impeachment of Warren Hastings. Declaiming it
before, as the local paper put it, "Mr. Commissioner Gordon and his
good lady, Mr. Tom Gordon, a fine young man worthy of his great father
who has lately entered India from Eton in quest of police post, the
beautiful Miss Gordon, and many others of European renown, including
natives of high official positions, who have honoured the Reverends
Freemantle and Smith with attendance at their mission-school
prizegiving."

They sat in a semicircle on the dais. A quaint company. Mr.
Commissioner Gordon, with a painstakingly pious expression on his
grizzly red-bearded face, inwardly rehearsing the speech he would have
to make in his turn; his good lady nervously eyeing the gilt books
which she would have to give away, spread out on the table before her.
It was covered with a royal red cloth, and on it stood a packed posy of
jasmine blossoms and marigolds. The odour of the crushed blossoms
mingled with the confused scent of cocoanut oil, roses, and curry
powder which is inseparable from every Indian assembly. On one side of
the Commissioner sat the Reverend Freemantle, a gentleman with a beard
grown white in the service of education. Mild, placid, benevolent, his
face beamed out over his students. They were all doing well, and
Gunpat-Rai was simply excelling himself by showing complete mastery
over both vowels and consonants. Indeed, in the whole semicircle of
eager teachers and approvers upon the platform there was not to be seen
a dissentient expression; and one _zenana_-worker positively wept tears
of joy, because it was through her dreary daily drudgery amongst fetid
alleys and sunless back courts that the prize pupil had originally come
to the mission-school.

Otherwise he might have remained as his father had remained all his
life, proprietor of an odd little shop right away from all other shops,
where they sold matches and oil, flour and earthenware dishes, string
and pipe-bowls--everything, in fact, which might suddenly be wanted in
the big, high, tenement houses that elbowed and shouldered the little
dark lane.

"The law is the security of the people of England! It is the security
of the people of India!"

Gunpat-Rai's voice, overtaxed, almost broke over the climax of Burke's
rhodomontade, but the tumultuous, undisciplined applause which
followed, covered the fact, and he sat down feeling dazed, confused. It
was the first time he had ever spoken in public, and he had found that
he had not been afraid. That, in itself, was disturbing--he had not
felt afraid!

Meanwhile, Mr. Commissioner Gordon's loud voice was bombarding the wall
with fitful explosions of words which reverberated amidst an echo of
hesitating stutters.

"Gives me great pleasure, unalloyed pleasure to--er--er--er--to--to see
Indian youth--er--er--er--taking their place with--with--er--er--er----"
Here a glance at his son--who, after the manner of sons when their
fathers are speaking, was burying his face in his hands--seemed to
supply the lacking phrase--"with the youth of England."

"Good Heavens!" groaned Tom Gordon aside plaintively; "I say, Nell, how
long do you think the Guv'nor will be on his legs, for I'll slope out,
and have a smoke----"

"S--st, Tom!" reproved his sister severely. "You can't--and you've got
to play in the cricket match, you know."

Tom groaned again, but less plaintively; and so the speechifying
went on, the burden of all being the incalculable advantage of a good
sound English education in every walk of life. Did they but choose,
every student present--at any rate, students of the stamp of
Gunpat-Rai--might "rise to higher things."

So, with a final and formal hand-shake to the lad who had so
distinguished himself, the company trooped out into the sunshine and
the mission-school lay empty. Only in the place where Gunpat-Rai had
sat ere rising to speak, a tiny packet wrapped in silver-leaf betrayed
its presence by shining like a star. It was the talisman which his
little fifteen-year-old wife had given him that morning ere he started,
with tears and laughter, because it was only the first half-chewed,
half-sucked piece of dough-cake his firstborn had ever had. It had
dropped from his nerveless hand when, in a dire funk, he had stood up
in answer to the call of his name.

It did not, however, shine long, for an impudent sparrow soon
discovered that it was but dough made silvern, and promptly carried it
off.

Meanwhile the cricket match was in full swing, Tom Gordon captaining
one side, and the Reverend Mr. Freemantle (who still cherished an old
blue cap he had worn in his Oxford days) the other.

Youth, however, had to be allowed for, so the last-comer from
Eton found himself, to his great delight, at the head of ten
smaller boys--jolly little chaps with bright eyes and boundless
obediences--while the big students, including Gunpat-Rai--who was cock
at cricket as in English, ranged themselves under their master.

They won the toss, and Tom Gordon, as he suppled his hands with the
ball, told himself the bowling must be good.

And good it was, especially in style. The tall young figure in white
flannels, close clipped about the lean flanks with the light blue belt,
reminded one of a flying Mercury as it poised in delivery. Every
woman's eye was on it in admiration. As for the swift balls it sent,
they were a revelation to these Indian boys, who had never seen real
cricket. They crumpled up before them like agitated spiders when they
came off the wicket, and when they came on it, they looked helplessly
at the umpire to see if they were really out. The Reverend Mr.
Freemantle made a good stand, the memory of many a past day coming back
to give half-forgotten skill to his bat, his sheer delight in his
youthful adversary's prowess making him bold. Still the score stood
ominously at one figure when Gunpat-Rai took his place. Tom Gordon
hitched up his belt and looked.

"I should say leg before," he muttered, "but they're so thin, they
hardly count."

And then he let drive.

Now, whether the ball chose to hit Gunpat-Rai's bat or Gunpat-Rai's bat
chose to hit the ball, is immaterial. Away it went beyond the boundary,
and Gunpat-Rai's long legs scored four. A sharp, hissing roar of
delight rose from the assembled school, and Tom Gordon frowned faintly;
but he was far too good-humoured to withstand what followed. Heartened
up by his absolutely unlooked-for success, Gunpat-Rai who, though his
legs were thin, was a powerful enough young fellow, did everything and
more than everything that could be expected of him. He gambolled out
and slogged wildly, he pirouetted like a teetotum and nearly killed his
wicket-keep, and finally let drive at his partner's wicket, demolishing
all three stumps.

"Out!" cried the umpire ruefully, but with commendable impartiality,
and when Tom Gordon had sufficiently recovered from his laughter to
assert that no one but the stumps had suffered, another hissing roar of
applause rose from the school.

All things, however, must come to an end, and a skying block of
Gunpat-Rai's was finally caught by Tom Gordon as it appeared to be
descending on his mother's lap. But the score stood at thirty-six, and
as the batsman walked past him proudly yet sheepishly, the Eton boy
shook him by the hand.

"By George, you know," he said, "you'd be another Ranji, with practice!
I never saw such an innings played--never!"

Gunpat-Rai flushed up under his dark skin and gave back the grip with
all the curious, lissome strength of an Indian hand, in which the
sinews seem made of iron, the bones of velvet.

After that it seemed of little count that Tom Gordon, who began the
next innings, should, by a judicious foresight and the obedience of his
small boys combined, carry out his last bat as last man with a score of
seventy-two.

"You are too good for us, Gordon," laughed the Rev. Mr. Freemantle. "We
must deport him from the station, or request him not to play again,
mustn't we, boys?"

But the hissing roar which followed was of dissent, not assent, and
when it had died away, Gunpat-Rai, as head of the school, spoke up, to
his own surprise again, fluently.

"Cricket," he said, "is a noble game. We learn everything noble from
England. So are we pleased to acquire proficiency at the hands of Mr.
Tom Gordon, Esquire."

The soft dark eyes looked almost appealingly at the blue ones.

"All right," said their owner, curtly. "I'll come down and coach you a
bit, if you like."

And he did.


                                  II
                            GOLDEN SILENCE

"Why on earth can't you learn to hold your tongue, Gunpat?" said Tom
Gordon roughly. "I thought you had more sense than to mix yourself up
with those Arya Somajh agitators. You'll be getting yourself into
trouble some day!"

The years had passed since the famous innings, making of the bowler an
Assistant District Superintendent of Police, of the batsman a pleader
in the High Court. Practically the balance of progress was all in
favour of the latter. Coming from the house of a miserable merchant
whose monthly earnings barely touched a living wage of the poorest
description, he had risen far beyond his birthright, whereas Tom
Gordon, on his pay of two hundred a month, with poor promotion before
him, had, if anything, fallen from his. But discontent sat in the dark
eyes and cheerful acquiescence in the blue ones. Perhaps the owner of
the latter was a better appraiser of his own worth, for he knew he was
not clever; knew that though he was "jolly good" at this, he was not
"jolly good" at that. Not so Gunpat-Rai. Clever at school--the
cleverness of imitation, of memory--and gifted with a fluency of words
beyond even that of most of his class, he had spent the first years of
his young manhood in waiting for an appointment which never came. How
could it come when every school in India turns out dozens of applicants
as capable as he for every Government post from Cape Comorin to Holy
Himalaya? Yet resentment at this failure of the impossible ate into his
soul. So he had turned pleader, had drifted into the editing of a
native newspaper, a copy of which lay on Tom Gordon's office table as
he looked with kindly contempt at the man who sat opposite him. For,
though Gunpat-Rai had not turned out a second Ranji, the memory of the
old days when he had coached the Ilmpur school still lingered with the
Eton boy, and he had shaken hands as frankly as ever when Gunpat-Rai
had called to welcome him to his new district.

"I'll tell you what it is, Gunpat," continued Tom Gordon, "you
fellows don't know what anybody wants but yourselves. Now, take this
district--it's a very fair sample." He turned over the leaves of the
last Census report which lay on his table rapidly. "Hum--m--m, here we
are, Jahilabad, population 560,000 odd--240,000 Jat cultivators of the
soil, 35,000 Banyas, presumably moneylenders--literacy--let's take the
average for all India if you like--it tells enormously against my
argument, but it can stand it! Now think! At fifty-three per thousand
we have twenty-nine--let's say 30,000 men who can scrawl their names
and spell out a line or two in their own vernacular. How many of these
are put out of court by the 35,000 moneylenders? More than half, I'll
wager. There you are, you educated men, a negligible minority, taking
India as a whole. So why don't you speak for yourselves, not for the
country at large? Because you don't really mean anything, you don't
know what you want yourselves." Tom Gordon paused in this unusual
eloquence, and, with a laugh, turned to the handsome little fellow of
six whom Gunpat-Rai had shown off with pride as his eldest son.

"Jolly little chap," said the Assistant Superintendent irrelevantly. "I
suppose he's married?"

Gunpat-Rai flushed up under his dark skin as he had done five years
before at the cricket match.

"The women----" he began.

"Oh, I know!" interrupted the young Englishman. "'_Stri acchar_,' and
all that. But, I say, Gunpat! How the deuce are you going to govern
India if you can't even settle your womenkind? No, my dear fellow! I
haven't the faintest sympathy with you. You sail pretty near sedition
in this copy." Here he laid his hand on the blurred, blotched
broadsheet which called itself _The Star of Hope_. "But, by George! if
you jib it the least bit more, I shall have to run you in. So don't be
a fool. You're a good sort, Gunpat, and I shall never forget that
innings of yours--never! If you would only have stuck to it instead of
'seeking a post in white clothing' you might have been----"

He paused, unable to say what; and Gunpat-Rai, feeling a like
inability, the conversation ended uncomfortably.

And so it came to pass that not many more days afterwards, Tom
Gordon sat once more in that curious atmosphere of cocoanut-oil and
curry powder which is inseparable from Indian crowds, listening to
Gunpat-Rai's voice. But he sat disguised in one of the front benches of
the crowded hall, so that he had to look far back more than once to see
that his constables were all in evidence. For a notable agitator on
tour had stopped at the little town; and this was a meeting which must
be reported upon, since here was no audience composed of peacefully
seditious Bengâli clerks and irresponsible students, but of stalwart
Jats, discontented over some new, but as yet untried, scheme of
irrigation. Now, irrigation stands closer to the heart of a Jat that
does wife and children. What! was the Sirkar to deny the land its
drink?

The other speakers had been innocuous. Their very vehemence had passed
by the slumbering passions of the long-bearded Jats who listened to
them with ill-concealed yawns. But with Gunpat-Rai it was different. At
the first word Tom Gordon felt that he was in the presence of a born
orator. And yet--and yet--surely the words were vaguely familiar in
their import, if not in their sound?

"The crimes we charge against this alien Government of India," came the
liquid Indian voice, "are not lapses, defects, errors of common frailty
which we, brethren, as we know them in ourselves, can allow for. They
are no crimes that have not arisen from evil passions--passions which
it is criminal to harbour"--an iron mailed stick held by a burly farmer
fell with a clang as its owner shifted it to his right hand--"no
offences that have not their root in avarice, rapacity, pride,
insolence, ferocity, treachery, cruelty, malignity of temper----" Each
epithet seemed punctuated by a growing stir amongst the audience. "In
short, in nothing that does not argue a total extinction of all moral
principle, that does not manifest an inveterate blackness of heart."

Tom Gordon had it now! The Billingsgate he had confounded years ago, of
course--Burke's Billingsgate!

He had flung off his disguise and leapt to the dais in a second.

"Oh, hold your jaw! Do, there's a decent chap! Don't go spouting other
folks' abuse!" he cried.

But Gunpat-Rai was helpless before the sudden need for decision. "Dyed
ingrain with malice, vitiated----" he went on mechanically.

The young Assistant Superintendent of Police gave a sharp glance behind
him. What he saw there was not reassuring. "Oh! do shut up! Tell them
the meeting's over, or there'll be mischief."

"Corrupted, gangrened----"

"Constables," came the order keenly, "clear the room! For Heaven's
sake, Gunpat, don't get yourself into trouble!"

They were the last words Tom Gordon spoke. His hand slipped from
Gunpat-Rai's shoulder as he was struck full on the bare head from
behind by an iron-bound staff which crashed into his skull.

Even then the tyranny of words held Gunpat-Rai, though the suddenness
of the shock dislocated his sequence.

"Dyed ingrain, corrupted to the very core."

Then he stood staring at what lay before him, and a great silence--a
golden silence from words--came to him at last.

He only broke it once, when he was on trial. The court was full of his
friends, and on the dais sat Englishmen, so the conditions were nearly
the same as they had been years ago when the hot sunshine had slanted
from the Tipper windows at Ilmpur to lay broad squares on the cool
whitewash.

"I learnt it at school," he said dully; and then he began: "But the
crimes we charge against you----"

"Hush--h!" said the judge gravely. "We know what you learnt at school."

But that did not lessen the sentence.




                        THE FOOTSTEPS OF A DOG


She passed, smiling softly, though a vague trouble seemed to clutch at
her heart. She had found him asleep so often of late, and if the driver
slept, the oxen might well pause in their task of drawing water, and so
the fields which needed it so much be deprived for yet another day of
their life-giving draught. They were not, however, pausing now, at any
rate. Their slow circling brought her sleeping husband to Sarsuti's
eyes, and carried him away again, wheeling round by the well from whose
depths a stream of water splashed drowsily into a wooden trough and
then hurried away--a little ribbed ribbon of light--out of the shade of
the great banyan tree into the sun-saturated soil beyond where the
young millet was sprouting.

How cool it was, after her hot walk from the village! No wonder he
slept! She sat herself down beside the runnel of water where a jasmine
bush threw wild whips of leaf and blossom over the damp earth. There
was no need to wake him yet. The bullocks would not pause now that she
was there to make them do their work.

That was her task in life!--to make them do their work.

She sighed, and yet she smiled again, as the slow-circling oxen brought
her husband Prema almost to her feet once more. How handsome he was,
his bare head lying on the turban he had pressed into the service of a
pillow. And his slender limbs! How ingeniously he had curved them on
the forked seat so as to gain a comfortable resting-place! Trust Prema
to make himself and everyone else in the world comfortable! A sudden
leap of her heart sent the blood to dye her dark face still darker, as
she thought of the softness, the warmth, the colour he had brought into
her life.

How long had they been married? Ten years--a whole ten years, and there
was never a child yet. It was getting time. No! No! Not yet--not yet!
She need not look that in the face yet.

She rose suddenly as the wheeling oxen brought him to her once more,
and staying them with one swift word, bent over the sleeping man.

"Prem!" she said. "Prema! I am here." His arms were round her in an
instant, his lips on hers; for here, out in the shadow amongst the
sunshine, they were alone.

"Sarsuti! Wife!" he murmured drowsily, then with a laugh, shook his
long length and stood beside her, his arm still about her waist. Tall
as he was, she was almost as tall, a straight, upstanding Jatni woman
with eyebrows like a broad bar across her face.

But, as her dark eyes met his in passionate adoration, something in the
sight of his exceeding beauty smote her to the heart. The thought that
there was none to inherit it, the knowledge that if it passed it would
leave nothing behind it. It is a thought which has driven many an
Indian woman to take another woman by the hand and lead her home to be
a hand-maiden to the lord. It drove Sarsuti--after long weeks, nay,
months of thought--almost to speech.

"Prem!" she faltered, hiding her face on his breast,

"I have been thinking--thou needst a son--and----" But she could get no
further, partly because the words seemed to choke her, partly because
Prema, turning her face to his with his soft, supple hand, stopped her
mouth with kisses.

What was the use? What was the use, she asked herself fiercely,
thinking of such things when she loved him so? Some morning, aye! some
summer morning after a summer's night, she would rather make the
Dream-compeller send her to sleep, once and for all!--to sleep and
dreams of Prema and his love! Then he could marry again, and there
would be children to light up the old house, a son to light the funeral
pyre.

But now--no! Not yet!...

The sunshine filtering through the broad leaves dappled them with light
and shade; the oxen resting stood head down, nosing at the damp earth;
the water, ceasing to splash, ran silently more and more slowly on its
way, and all around them a yellow glare of heat hemmed them in
breathlessly. Yet here, at the well, the jasmine grew green, a big
datura lily, rejoicing in the shade, threw out its wide white blossoms,
and, looking down to the mirror-like pool of water into which the long,
unending circle of deftly-arranged earthen pots and ropes dipped, you
could see the tufts of maidenhair fern which came God knows whence.
They were like love in the heart--Heaven--sent!

"Thou wilt call at the Lala-_jee's_ this evening, Sarsuti," said Prema,
with a faint note of half-shamed uneasiness in his voice, as, his
midday meal of milk and hearth-cakes over, she prepared to go back. "He
deals more justly with thee than with me--may he be accursed, and may
the footsteps of a dog ..."

"S'st! Prema," she interrupted, "the Lala-_jee_ is no worse than his
kind; and we have asked so much--lately."

Yes! she thought as she trudged homewards, they had asked much, for
Prema had a lavish hand. Yet she would, of course, have him keep up his
position as head man of the village; the position that had been hers by
right as the only child of her father. Prema, her cousin, had gained it
through his marriage to her, by special favour of the Sirkar, in memory
of good service done in the Mutiny time by the old man. He had been a
better husbandman than Prema, and money had gone fast these few years
since he died, though she had tried to keep things as they had been.
Still, who could grudge Prema the handsomest yoke of oxen in the
country-side, the fleetest mare? And those mad experiments of his with
new ploughs, new seeds that the Huzoors spoke about! It was well to
keep to the soft side of the masters, no doubt, yet it should be done
discreetly--and when was Prema ever discreet? She almost laughed, even
while she stooped to let the water from an overflooded plot run into
the next by removing the clod which her husband had forgotten, thinking
of his indiscreetness--of the gifts he showered on her when he had
money in his pocket to pay for them; sometimes when he had not. Of
course, the Lala-_jee_ would listen to reason and lend more on the
coming crop--who could deny Prem anything?

But the Lala was curiously obdurate. He was an old man, who had backed
the luck of the village for three generations, and never had a dispute
with his creditors.

"See you, daughter," he said. "Prem for all he is head man and thy
husband, is but man, and there is none to come after him."

Her face darkened with a hot blush again.

"The land will be there," she replied, haughtily.

"Aye, but who will own it! Strangers, they say, from far away. I have
no dealings with strangers."

"There will be my share," she protested.

"Aye! but how wilt thou fare with strangers also, thou--childless
widow?" he asked.

Her hot anger flamed up. "Wait thou and see! Meanwhile, since thou art
afraid, take this," she tore off the solid gold bangle she wore, "'tis
worth fifty rupees at the veriest pawnshop--give me forty!"

"Nay," replied the bunnya, with spirit. "'Tis worth a good
seventy-five, though thy man--I'll warrant me--paid a hundred. So
seventy-five thou shalt have; but, look you, daughter--or, if thou
willest it, mother--keep Prem in leash, or a surety the footsteps of a
dog will show on his ashes."

She looked at him, startled. Curious how the phrase, born of a belief
that one can read the reward of the dead from the marks which show on
his funeral pyre, should crop up. First from Prem, regarding the
 Lala-_jee_, next from the Lala-_jee_ concerning Prem. Was there any
truth in it, she wondered? She had the money, that was one comfort, and
Prema would be pleased. Then, when the Biluch mare foaled, and they
sold it as a yearling for the three hundred rupees Prem thought it
would fetch, she would tell him how she had pawned his gift; meanwhile,
a brass bracelet, to be had at the shop for a rupee, would serve to
deceive his eyes. But not the sharp ones of Veru, the young widow who
was the only other inhabitant of the wide courtyard with its slips of
arcaded rooms round about it, and great stacks of millet stalks, and
huge bee-hive stores of grain.

Her eyes were on it from the moment Sarsuti, sitting down above her on
the little raised mud dais, began to spin.

"Thou needst not stare so, girl," broke in Sarsuti, at last. "Yes! I
have pawned it. He needed money, and he is more to me than aught else
beside--more than thou, husbandless, can dream, child."

Veru--she was indeed but little more than a child, this virgin widow of
Sarsuti's half-brother, who had been born and died in his father's old
age--held her head lower over her wheel, and said nothing. Her widow's
shroud seemed to swallow her up. Yet in that Jat household she was
kindly enough treated, for Sarsuti's strong arms loved work, and she
had a great pity in her great soft heart for all unloved things. Here
was no question of shaven head or daily fasting. Veru simply led a
cloistered life, and did what share her strength allowed of the daily
work. Of late that had not been much; she had complained of fatigue,
and had sat all day spinning feverishly as if to make up for her
failure in other ways; for she was a sensitive little thing, ready to
cry at a word of blame.

So the evening passed by. Prema was not to be back from the well till
late, not, indeed, until the moon set; for the young millet had been
neglected somewhat, and even he was roused to the necessity for action.
Water it must have, or there would be no crop. Thus, as the sun set,
Sarsuti cooked the supper, reserving the best dough cakes, the choicest
morsels of the pickled carrots against her husband's return, and then,
being weary, lay down so as to freshen herself up to receive him as he
should be received. The night was hot, there was a restlessness in it
which found its way into her mind, and she lay awake for some time
thinking of what the Lala-_jee_ had said. Yes! It was time, it was
growing time for so many things. Yes! she must harden her heart and be
wise--the footsteps of the ...

Here she fell asleep.

When she woke, there was pitch darkness. The moon had set. What had
happened? Had Prema returned, and, full of kindliness as ever, seen she
was tired and so refrained from waking her? She put out her hand and
touched his bed, but he was not there. How late he was! And where was
Veru? Veru, who should have been watching for him.

"Veru! lazy child--art asleep?"

Her question came back to her unanswered; Veru, also, was not in the
wide courtyard. Where were they?

The very conjunction of her thought regarding them, woke in her a
sudden swift pang of jealousy.

Where were they?

A minute later, holding an oil cresset in her hand as a guard against
snakes, she was passing swiftly through the deserted village on her way
to the well. Prema might have fallen asleep--he might be asleep still.
The night was so dark, she held the lamp high above her head so as to
throw its light before her on the narrow edge of a pathway between the
flooded fields. It was so still, she could hear the faint sob made by
some deadly thing slipping from her coming into the water, over which a
wandering firefly would flash, revealing an inky glimmer between the
rising shoots of corn. Ahead, that massed shadow was the banyan tree.
The fireflies were thick there, thick as cressets at a bridal feast ...

If Prema slept--Yes! if he slept, to be awakened by a kiss.

Underneath the arching branches of the banyan tree it was dark indeed,
but the silence of it told her that the oxen anyhow were at rest.

And Prema!

As she held the light forward, something on the ground at her feet
caught her eye--jasmine! Jasmine twined into a wreath. For whose head?
Not hers!

"Prema!" she called. "Prem!"

There was no answer. But he was there for all that; half resting on the
forked seat, as if he had flung himself upon it when weary; weary and
content; his head thrown back upon his arm, his whole body lax with
sleep--and with content.

She had seen him look thus so often! "Prem!" she whispered. "Prem!" and
touched him on the bosom.

Then a hideous shriek of terror and horror startled the sleeping oxen
into forward movement, as from the folds of his clothes, like some evil
thought, there slipped a snake, swift, curved, disappearing into the
darkness.

"Prem! Prem! Speak to me! Oh, Prem--speak!"

As she flung herself upon him, the forward movement of the oxen forced
her to her knees, so heeding it not at all, one hand holding the light
close to his face as she strove vainly to rouse him, she was dragged
along the accustomed round, until the beasts, recognising the
unaccustomed strain, paused once more.

"Prem! Say thou art not dead--say only that, Prem!" she moaned.

Her voice seemed to reach him on the far edge of the great Blank, for
his eyelids quivered. Then, for one moment, he looked at her, and there
was appeal in his eyes.

"Wife--Veru--my----" It was scarcely a whisper, but she heard it, and
with a cry of joy, she caught him in her strong arms, laid him on the
ground, and, tearing his cloth aside, sought for the wound. Finding it,
her lips were on it in a second. Ah! could kisses draw the poison,
surely her frantic love must avail.

But no. His eyelids closed. There was no sound, only a little quiver
that she felt through her lips. Then his beauty lay still beneath them.

After a time she drew herself away from him, and laid his head upon her
lap. So she sat, dazed, thinking of that jasmine wreath in the dust,
and of that half-heard whisper--

"Wife--Veru--my----" My--what?


                          *   *   *   *   *


"And there is none to come after him," said the village worthies, when
the fire of Prema's burning had died down to smouldering embers, and
the oldest man of his clan in the village had performed the rites which
should have been the duty of a son.

And then they shook their heads wisely, thinking that men of Prem
Singh's kind ran an ill risk in the next world without a son to perform
the funeral obsequies; especially, nowadays, when the law prevented a
dutiful wife from ensuring her husband's safety and salvation by
burning herself on his funeral pyre. Yea! it was an ill world indeed in
which the fostered virtue of a woman you had cared for and cossetted
might not avail to save the man she loved from the pains of purgatory.
And then they drifted away, full of surmise and deep desire concerning
the headship of the village. Mai Sarsuti could not hold it as a widow,
though she could hold the land; and there were no relations--none. So
the coast was clear for many claims.

Sarsuti meanwhile had not clamoured--as many an Indian widow does even
nowadays--to be allowed to sacrifice herself for her husband's
salvation. She had scarcely wept. She had, on the contrary, spoken
sternly to Veru, bidding her keep her foolish tears until all things
had been done in due order to keep away the evil spirits and ensure
peace to the departed.

Then, after all the ceremonies were completed, and Prem's beauty lay
swathed awaiting sunset for its burning, she had sat on one side of his
low bier, while Veru sat on the other, and the wail had risen
piercingly--

"Naked he came, naked he has gone; this empty dwelling-house belongs
neither to you nor to me."

There had been a menace in her voice, high-pitched, clear, almost
impassive, while Veru's had been broken by sobs.

So now that frail weakling was asleep, wearied out by her woe, while
Sarsuti sat where the bier had been, still in all the glory of her
wifely raiment, still with the vermilion stain upon her forehead, still
wearing round her neck the blessed marriage cord with which he had so
often toyed. For she had point-blank refused to allow it to be broken.
Time enough for the widow's shroud, she had said. To-day she was still
Prem's wife--he had scarce had time to die.

So she sat quite still, looking at the place where he had lain,
thinking of those last words. Had she really heard them? Was it
possible, the thing that had leapt to her mind?

Deep down in her heart she knew vaguely that the feet of her idol had
been of clay; that with Prem all things were possible. Poor, wandering
feet, which might yet have kept to the straight path, if--Oh, Prem!
Prem! Had it been her fault? Or was she wronging him?

Then, suddenly, that recurring phrase recurred to her once more.

"The footstep of a dog--the footstep of a dog."

Was it past midnight? Had another day begun--the day of judgment?
Surely; then she could see--yea! She could prove it was not true.

The moon was just sinking as, close-wrapped in her veil, she crept down
to the edge of the nullah, where the burning-ground lay; a gruesome
place, haunted by the spirits of the departed, not to be ventured near
after dark. But Sarsuti had forgotten all the village lore, she had
forgotten everything save that deadly doubt.

Yonder, it must be on the point close to the water, for still an almost
mist-like vapour lingered there. She sped past the faintly lighted
patches on the hard-baked soil which told of other burnings, murmuring
a prayer for the peace of dead souls, and so found herself beside that
little pile of dear ashes. A breeze from the coming dawn stirred them,
sending a grey flake or two to meet her.

"Prem!" she whispered; then, as she stooped to look, the whisper passed
to a cry--

"Oh! Prema! Prema!"

She lay there face down, her hands grovelling in the still warm embers
on which there showed unmistakably the footstep of a dog!

And the moon sank, so there was darkness for a while. Then in the far
east the horizon lightened, bringing a grey mystery to the wide expanse
of the level world. And behind the greyness came a primrose dawn, and
the sun, rising serene and bright, sent a shaft of light to touch her
as she lay.

Then she rose, and dusting the dear ashes from her almost blistered
hands, she crept back to the wide courtyard, where Veru still slept,
worn out by sorrow. She stood watching her asleep, wondering at her own
blindness. Then she touched her on the bosom.

"Wake!" she cried, in a loud voice. "Wake! Oh, Veru! And speak the
truth!"

The girl started up, and the eyes of the two women met.


                          *   *   *   *   *


The village was bitterly disappointed; but, of course, there was
nothing to be done but wait and see if the child was a son, for Mai
Sarsuti had stolen a march on them. She had gone straight to the
burra-sahib, straight to the head district official, and told him of
her hopes. What is more, she had petitioned for trustees to work the
land, seeing that she and her sister-in-law were poor widows; and she,
especially, unfit for work.

So three of the village elders had been convened to see to the land and
render account to the sahib, who would be sure to keep an eye on them
seeing that Mai Sarsuti was an upstanding, straightforward Jatni, just
the kind to whom the sahib-logue gave consideration. And, after all,
she and hers deserved it, for they came of a long line of virtuous,
loyal people.

So Sarsuti, with Vera, lived in the seclusion which befitted her recent
loss; though, according to custom, she still wore a wife's dress. But
she grew haggard as the months went by. Small wonder, said the village
matrons, when they returned from their occasional visits, seeing that
she awaited a fatherless child.

Then one morning, Veru, looking very worn and frightened, and ill, came
to tell the elders that a son had been born to Sarsuti. Perhaps it was
as well, they thought, since otherwise there might be disputes about
the headship. Now there could be none; and as there would be a very
long minority under the care of the sahibs, Prem's son would come in to
free land, and money laid up in the bank. A rich headman was always a
prop to the village. So their wives went to congratulate the new-made
mother.

She was looking haggard still, and scarcely seemed to rejoice in her
great gift; but that, perhaps, might come by and bye.

But it did not. Sometimes she would take the baby and look at it long
and earnestly. Then she would give it back to Veru, whose arms were
seldom empty of Prem's child, and return to the work of the house, or
sit watching them gravely from her spinning-wheel, her large dark eyes
full of wistful pain.

So the months sped by.

And still Sarsuti wore a wife's dress and smeared vermilion on her
forehead; and the mangala sutram, still unbroken, held the wife's medal
round her throat. It would be time, she answered proudly to the shocked
village women, to think of breaking it when Prem should have been dead
a year, and the child be able to suck cow's milk.

She prepared for the anniversary by purchasing a Maw's feeding bottle,
and an eagerness grew to her face as she watched little Prem take it,
and roll over contentedly to sleep, like the fat good-natured little
lump of a healthy child as he was. But Veru wept.

Still, Maw had supplanted Motherhood when the night came round again on
which Sarsuti had heard that faint whisper from her dying husband. The
child slept as a child should, and Veru, once more worn out by tears,
slept also.

But, as on that night a year ago, Sarsuti sat on the place where Prem's
bier had lain and thought, her dark eyes full of a great resolve.
Suddenly she rose, tall, straight, upstanding, and passed to where
the child lay. She stooped and kissed it--kissed it for the first
time--then, throwing her arms skywards, murmured to High Heaven, "Lo! I
have saved him--I, his wife"; and so, catching up a small bundle which
she had prepared, passed into the darkness of the night.


                          *   *   *   *   *


They found her charred body at dawn, face downwards, where the
footsteps of a dog had shown upon Prem's ashes.

She had saturated her clothes with paraffin, and set fire to herself
deliberately.

"Lo! how she loved him," said the village elders, behind their outward
and decorous disapproval. "See you, she is decked as a bride with all
her jewels. Now, with a son in his house, and suttee on his pyre, there
is no fear but what Prem hath found freedom."

"Ay!" assented the Lala-_jee_. "The footstep of a dog will not be seen
on his ashes."




                        THE FINDING OF PRIVATE
                               FLANIGAN


We were quartered up in the hills making a military road when Private
Flanigan was lost. It was to be a big road, cutting clean into the
heart of the Himalayas, so various detachments were set to work upon
its long length. Ours was the last but one, and we were lucky in
getting by far the best pitch on the whole line. It would be difficult,
indeed, to exaggerate its beauty, and as summer came on the advantages
of shade-shelter which it afforded made us feel blessed above our
fellows. It was a green oasis about half-a-mile long by some quarter
broad, of fine emerald sward not to be beaten by any English lawn. And
it was irregularly fringed by the most magnificent deodar cedars I have
ever seen. When we arrived in early autumn these were wreathed with
virginia creeper already russet, which, as winter advanced, flamed like
fire among the dark spines. Now, in spring the trees were hung to their
very tops with a rambling white rose, faintly double, faintly yet
penetratingly scented, which festooned the whole forest, making it look
as if it were garlanded for some festival, and turning the oval
greensward into a veritable _stadium_ fit for the sport of a King; for
an amphitheatre of blue hills rose behind the forest, with here and
there a peak of eternal snow.

It was simply a ripping place, and when on Saturday evenings, the
detachment further south, and the detachment further north, used to
come over to play football, the fellows were always full of envy. Our
men--there were but two officers with each detachment--were little
Ghurkas, but they played an uncommonly good game, thanks partly to the
fact that my captain was an old Rugby man, and gave his countenance to
practice. But our chief asset was Private Flanigan of the small party
of Sappers and Miners who acted as overseers on the works. He was not,
perhaps, a shining example to the men in other ways, but so far as
football went, he was the best possible coach.

The result was, that, despite their small size, our Ghurkas could hold
their own with the detachment of Tommies further south. They never
actually won a match, but they made a stubborn fight, and accepted
honourable defeat good humouredly, treating their adversaries right
royally at the canteen afterwards in the manner of Ghurkas when they
get chummy with British regiments. It was a quaint sight to see them
hob-nobbing together at the further end of the _stadium_, where there
was a duck-pond sort of lake half filled with sacred lotus, blossoming
white and pink. A wood-slab little temple dedicated to Kâli stood
beside this lake with steps leading down to the water; but nobody
seemed to notice its presence, and the very brahman in charge used to
come and watch the games with interest; perhaps he thought it
sufficiently savage to please the terrific goddess who sat enshrined in
a little dark hole, where nothing was to be seen of Her but crimson
arms and hands, one of them apparently holding a football. It certainly
was bloodthirsty enough one day when the detachment further north came
down to try their luck. They were the biggest, tallest, lankiest lot of
Sikhs I ever saw, but, perhaps because they had such long shins, they
simply knuckled under before a rush of our little beggars. It was
almost pitiable to see them; the more so because they were furious, and
would not accept consolation, even at the hands of Private Flanigan,
who with unblushing kindness of heart, took all the credit to himself
in the curious dialect he used as a means of communication with his
pupils; for being a Manchester Irishman, his English had to contend
with a town accent, a Lancashire accent and an Irish accent, while his
Hindustani was of the lowest type to be picked up in a barrack square.

"'Taint your _kussoor_ (fault), sonnies, at all, at all! be jabers!
_nahin_ (no). Don'tcher fret. _Dil khoosh_ (heart happy). Kape yer 'air
on. _Dekko you soors_--beg pardon, gintlemen, it was a mistake
entoirely!--You 'aven't a _Nadmi_ (man) like Tim Flanigan to _purwarish
karo_ (nourish) _you_." So in his garbled language he went on to boast
of what he had done for the little Gherkins, as he was wont to call
them, making them, indeed, rhyme to jerkins and firkins in a football
song he had composed; for Private Flanigan was great at singing, also
at clog dancing. In fact, he was good at anything and everything he
chose to take in hand thoroughly; but that was not much, for a more
idle, able, devil-may-care fellow did not exist. He was, however, a
general favourite, and I noticed that even my regulationarily correct
captain dealt leniently with his not infrequent lapses from good
behaviour. Flanigan was in tremendous form at a sing-song held the
night of the football match, and literally brought down the house with
his clog accompaniment to a patter song in which he parodied the
feelings of victor and vanquished. Even the priest of Kâli, who, as
usual, viewed the performance from a distance, was reported to have
observed that the energetic and active Goddess herself could not have
danced with greater vigour upon the prostrate body of Shiv-_jee_!

As for the Sikhs, they positively bellowed with delight, although
Private Flanigan had not paltered with such obvious rhymes as kicks and
licks. In fact, the whole audience was so happy and hilarious that we
hoped the slight difference of the afternoon was forgotten; but we were
mistaken. About midnight Sunt Singh, havildar, began to attribute Jye
Kush _naick's_ flat nose to a provision of the All-wise Creator in view
of football squashes, and assert magniloquently that God never made an
ugly Sikh, whereat strife arose, and _kukries_ and _bichwas_ might have
drawn blood had not my captain shown discreet firmness, and sent an
exactly equal number of Sikhs and Gurkhas to the guard room.

It was very shortly after this incident that Private Flanigan found
himself there also; as usual for patronising the canteen too liberally.
But this time he was profusely indignant, and assured me on his Bible
oath--as a rule he professed Roman Catholicism--that it was a gross
case of mistaken diagnosis. He had not been drunk; still less,
disorderly. When the sergeant put him under arrest he was merely giving
a realistic and spirited representation of last year's All England
match _as it had appeared to him_. And this he was doing solely for the
benefit of his pupils, the little Gherkins; shirkin', lurkin' little
Gherkins, who had basely failed to speak up for him when he was
comatose from fatigue.

That was about the last time I ever spoke to poor Flanigan; for about a
week after he was mysteriously lost. I say mysteriously, because though
all sorts of theories were put forward to explain his disappearance,
none of them were entirely satisfactory. I myself, inclined to the
explanation that, being, according to the Ghurkas' testimony, a little
bit on at the time, he lost his life in a sudden spate of the river
caused by the melting of the snows in the higher hills. It was a very
sudden spate, and caught the working party as they were clearing the
southern end of a deep cutting--a tunnel, indeed, for twenty yards or
so--which lay just at the end of our section. The Sikhs, however, who
were working at the northern end, escaped the flood altogether, and
rather jeered at our men who had to scramble for dear life, some
regaining the camp and others spending the night in the open; so, each
party thinking Flanigan must be with the other, he was not missed till
next morning, when it was too late to find his body.

We dragged the river pools to no purpose, then, as the spate had ruined
half our work, gave up the search and duly reported his death at
headquarters.

With the prospect of the advancing hot weather before us, when we must
knock off, there was not much time for amusement, and we were kept
pretty close at it. But a Himalaya spring in the uplands was a
perpetual temptation to me, and I used to start off at dawn time for a
long tramp on the higher _murgs_ or alps, taking my gun with me in case
I came across an old cock _minawul_ pheasant. There was a perfect
mosaic of flowers beneath one's feet; forget--menots, pansies, white
anemones, yellow gillyflowers, scarlet potentilla and half-a-hundred
others whose names I did not know. You could not set your foot down
without crushing some beautiful thing; you felt that you were ramping
through a veritable garden.

Then it was marvellous to see the snow peaks flush red with sunrise
while the shadow of night--the shadow of the earth itself!--still lay
immovable in the valleys, and you had to bend close over the mosaic to
distinguish one flower from another. Even the cock _minawul_, despite
their dazzling metallic lustre, looked shadowy and dark as they rose;
rose swiftly to flash out suddenly into copper and green, and silvery
goldeny blue as they met the higher sunlight.

One morning, thinking I had hit a splendid specimen of these rocketting
fireworks, and being anxious to secure such a perfectly plumaged bird,
I followed one over keenly. The result being that I lost my way, and
found myself under a blazing hot sun, still seeking for my particular
valley. At long last I caught a glimpse of deodar trees below me and
began to descend confidently; but half way down a certain strangeness
of contour made me pull up and question my judgment.

No! it was not our valley. It was too narrow, too small; besides, there
was no lakelet in it. Indeed, there seemed no way out of it; it lay
like an extinct crater, absolutely shut in by the high hills, tucked
away--right away--No! by Jove! there were people or things in it. I
could see a steady white spot of something on the greensward, and a
sort of dancing circle of black specks.

Were they men or animals? I was too short-sighted to distinguish; so I
started downwards again, impelled by curiosity and a vague feeling that
I knew what was coming, to find a point of vantage whence I could see
clearly.

I don't think I was in the least surprised at what I _did_ see. I am
sure my inner consciousness was aware of it before _I_ was.

The dazzling white speck was Private Flanigan. He was standing in a
dignified attitude in the very middle of the field, naked as the day he
was born, save for a waistcloth and the biggest pair of boots I ever
saw. At his feet lay a football, and in his right hand was a glass of
something to drink, which, between his sips, he used to beckon on his
adversaries.

I crept further till I could hear his voice.

"Come on, sonnies! come on, boys!" it came persuasively. "_Idder
'h'ow!_ I won't 'urt much--not to spake of--_Kooch nay_--Come on, I
says." Then, as his invitation was reluctantly accepted, he lunged out
a wild kick, an awful howl followed, and yet another lanky Sikh retired
rapidly, rubbing his shin. Whereat Private Flanigan laughed and took
another sip triumphantly.

"_Bahoot utcha!_"--the rollicking tones were a trifle thick--"Now
you're learning, I tell yer--yer 'ardening like a hegg in 'ot water.
And you'll soon get useter it. You won't remember it when yer sees the
leather a-sailing through the uprights. No, yer won't! No more nor a
woman for joy as a man is born into the wurrld. Hello! ye divvle--ye
would, would ye?"

This was to an enterprising youth who thought to take advantage of a
prolonged drink to sniggle the ball.

I lay and laughed. I couldn't help it. Flanigan wasn't a big man, but
he was brawny, and the Sikhs, twice his height, had such temptingly
long shins!

I watched the lesson of how to defend the globe until, after several
replenishings of the glass he held, Private Flanigan's dignity became
portentous, and his lunge a little wide.

Evidently, however, he was not too far gone to recognise the fact, for
suddenly he sat down, still guarding the ball with his wide-spread
legs, and called for a pipe, a pillow, and a punkah.

All three were instantly forthcoming, and as I cautiously re-climbed
the hill, I saw Private Flanigan enjoying his ease in the centre of an
admiring circle of pupils.

As I made my way home, I puzzled over what I had best do. Of course, it
was easy to report to my captain, but, by so doing, I should get a lot
of men into trouble over what was, in reality, a huge joke. Anyhow,
before I did so report, I determined to find out whether Private
Flanigan had absconded _himself_, or had been stolen.

So the next evening, having carefully taken the bearings of our valley
in miniature the day before, I went over after work hours. When I came
on the level at the bottom, I found that quite a large wood slab shed
had been erected at one end of the little bit of greensward. As I
crossed towards it the familiar sound of really good clog dancing met
my ears accompanying a rollicking baritone voice that was singing the
refrain of a patter song:


      "Kick an' 'ammer away at their shins,
       Silly old dribblers as cole' cream their skins,
       Barkin', lurkin', shirkin' Gher_kins_,
       Give 'em a crush and a rush for their sins,
       Yoicks! hey forward!!!--the Sicki wins."


A perfect bellow of applause was following as I opened the slab door
and walked in. There was a regular stage at the end of the shed, and on
it stood Tim Flanigan, bowing his acknowledgments to an audience of
squatting Sikhs with much dignity. A flimsy muslin overcoat partially
hid his massive muscles and he was garlanded with flowers like a prize
ox at a show. He did not notice me at first, and began a speech in true
music hall style, his hand on his heart:

"My kyind patrons, an' you Gintlemen of the Press, it is with the
hutmost diffidence that I roise to drink me own 'elth, you, gintlemen,
bein' by birth and descent tay totallers, which is better by a long
chalk than being answered for by godfathers an' godmothers at your
baptism. Gintlemen, I have but a few wurrds to say, so I will not
detain you. Since I come 'ere--I mean since the woise decrays of a
koindly Providence brought me to the wilderness, I 'ave endeavoured to
do my dooty by you, an' I done it. Gintlemen! you are a credit to me.
There ain't a 'ole skin amongst the lot of your shins. Gintlemen! it is
a thing to be proud of. It makes the tear come to my watery heyes an'
sends the life blood to the tip of my nose. I tell you, gintlemen, that
if any of thim officer chaps were to step in this moment----" Here his
eye caught mine. The change was instantaneous, and he brought himself
up to the salute smartly.

"Beg pardon, sir," he went on, without the least sign of embarrassment.
"Havin' bin h'absent without leave, sir, this fortnight past through
being kidnapped outrageous, I 'as to report myself."

I mustered up what gravity I could, for his attitude of respectful and
disciplined attention was excruciatingly funny in contrast with his
costume--or rather the lack of it.

"Private Flanigan," I said. "Have done with tomfoolery. How the devil
do you come here?"

"I didn't come, sir," he replied volubly. "I was brought, s'help me
Moses. I was kidnapped outrageous, as I said, by them Sickies, same as
seethin' it in its mother's milk. I was, entirely, sir--sure the
bla'gards won't deny it."

Here, _havildar_ Sunt Singh, who understood English, broke in rapidly
in Hindustani. "He speaks truth, Huzoor. He did not come of himself. He
was brought hither when he was without consciousness."

"From drink, I suppose?" I asked severely.

_Havildar_ Sunt Singh paused a moment. "Huzoor," he said at last,
solemnly. "In a world of illusion it is difficult to reach truth; but
one thing is certain, by the blessing of God he was extremely without
consciousness. Was it not so, brothers?" he continued, appealing to two
_naicks_ and another _havildar_ who were also standing to attention.
Their corroborative "_Be-shakks_" rang out smartly, like a rifle shot.

"That is all very well," I continued, sternly addressing the
culprit-in-chief. "If they kidnapped you, they'll have to answer for
it; but that is no excuse for you stopping here. You can't pretend
you're a prisoner, you know."

I glanced round as I spoke, and Flanigan's eyes followed mine. There
was a bed in one corner, a chair, a washhandstand, an assortment of
Europe tins, a box of cigars in a rough set of shelves, while on one
side of the stage stood a table, elaborately laid for dinner, with a
tablenapkin folded into the form of a peacock!

There was a pause. Then candour came to Private Flanigan's aid--almost
pathetic candour.

"Well! it weren't exactly uncomfortable, you see, sir," he said, with a
deprecating smile; and I had to admit the justice of his plea. It was
more comfortable than being packed like a herring in a barrel in a bell
tent. I had, moreover, thought the matter out, and had come to the
conclusion that the less said about it the better. So I gave Private
Flanigan the option of taking the pledge, and returning to duty, making
the best excuse he could for his absence, or being sent for officially.

He chose the former, to the great delight of the Sikhs, who, as he had
said, were teetotallers to a man, and who naturally did not want to get
into trouble over the business.

Next morning Private Flanigan reported himself to my captain. He was
bare-foot, travel-stained, weary, and he had the most cock-and-bull
story I ever heard of how he had spent the last ten days.

"If there had been any liquor shop within two hundred miles I wouldn't
believe him," said my captain in an injured tone, "but there isn't--and
no man is such a fool as to stop out in this wild country for nothing."

So the tale passed muster. Had I known, however, of the richness of the
culprit's imagination, I doubt whether I should have given him such a
field for it; for the story of the "loss of Private Flanigan" became a
recognised entertainment, even for the Gherkins, and night after night
he gave a different version of it to delighted admirers. I ventured
once to remonstrate with him, and hint that capture by cannibals was
hardly correct; but his unconsciousness was supreme.

"S'elp me Moses, sir," he said. "You don' know wot I bin through.
They'd have eat me, sure enuff, if I 'adn't happen to 'ave my big boots
on."

A fortnight afterwards we finished the work, but before we left our
jolly little camp we had a football Saturday. The Sikhs came down in
force, and licked the little Ghurkas all to smithereens.

"They must a 'ad some un to teach 'em 'ow to charge, sir," said Private
Flanigan sorrowfully to the captain.

The captain looked at me, and I looked at the captain. But I said
nothing, for Flanigan had been as sober as a judge since I found him.




                             REX ET IMP:


                                  I

"Rex will get on all right," said Muriel Alexander pettishly, "you know
quite well, Horace, that so long as he has old Bisvâs he wants nothing
else. Look at him now! He is quite happy, and the old man would die
rather than let any harm happen to the child."

Horace Alexander frowned slightly as he looked through the wide set
door of his office room to the verandah beyond. It was a very neat,
natty, office room, severely correct and Western in its pigeon-holes,
its files, its elegant upholstered chair at the further side of the
writing table ready for the confidential visitor. No guns defiled it;
no tennis bats, no half-used box of cigars, no general litter of
unofficial male humanity such as most Indian office rooms in the past
have permitted, was to be seen within the precincts sacred to duty, for
Horace Alexander was that curious product of modern times, a clever and
advanced man, bent upon progress, who stickles for the commonplace
conventional etiquette in all things. So he stirred uneasily at the
sight he saw beyond his office doors, dropped his eye-glasses and put
them on again petulantly.

Yet it was rather a pretty sight.

A red-haired, fuzzy-headed child of four or five, small, but strong and
sturdy, seated with the utmost dignity oh a red velvet cushion, his
broad freckled face wearing an expression of conscious majesty, part of
which was doubtless due to the insecurity of a gilt paper band which
was perched on his goldy-red curls.

Before him, in an attitude of prayerful adoration, squatted a very very
old man. At his full height he must still have been tall, and the bent
shoulders were broad; broad enough to show up the line of war-medals on
the breast of his orderly's coat. They gave the new scarlet cloth a
certain personal _cachet_ and toned down its official garishness.

"Come here, Rex!" called Horace Alexander, and the child rose at once.
Though high-spirited and a bit of an imp, he was a reasonable,
obedient, little chap enough; obedient because he was reasonable.

"What's that you've got on your head?" queried his father irritably.

"It's my c'wown," replied Rex cheerfully. "Bisvâs cut it out for me;
and he's goin' to put b'wown paper to make it 'weal stiff--c'wowns
onghter be stiff, 'weal stiff, oughtn't they? an' he's going to put
things on it like the pictures in the papers, an' then I shall be a
'weal King, shan't I?"

"No, my boy!" said his father sharply. "Crowns don't make kings;
remember that always. There was Charles the First----"; then he paused,
recognising he was out of the child's depth; and the cult of the weaker
brother was not often forgotten by Horace Alexander. It was the secret
of his popularity; but how he managed to reconcile it with his passion
for progress remained rather a mystery to some people.

"And what were you doing," he continued.

"I wasn't doin' nothin' except be king," replied the child; "but Bisvâs
was doin' '_durshan_.' What is a '_durshan_,' daddy, 'weally?"

The childish forehead was all puckered beneath its crown, and Rex's
father, for all he was entitled to linguistic letters after his name,
hesitated.

"Sight," he began, "ur--appearance--ur--aspect----"

But Rex shook his head in disapproval. "Bisvâs says it's just for all
the same as seein' God--didn't you, Bisvâs?"

The liquid Urdu to which the little fellow's voice turned, echoed
through the sunshine to where the tall old trooper, risen to his full
height, stood smiling.

"Huzoor! so it is, without doubt. The sight of a King is even as the
sight of a God. It is a revelation of the Most High."

"Good Lord!" muttered Horace Alexander under his breath, yet with an
amused smile. "The child will grow up a feudal serf combined with a
feudal lord, if we don't take care, Muriel! He is too much with old
Bisvâs--You'd better take him with you--or--or not go."

His wife did not even frown: her position was too assured in the
household for her to be even alarmed. "Of course I must go. I
must wear my new frocks. Besides, you forget I'm President of the
Veiled-Women's-Guild, and they are going to present a casket. And there
isn't room in the Hotel for Rex--I was lucky to get _one_ for myself
this morning--besides, it would be bad for him. Of course, when you
were going with tents and all that it was different; but now that
you've been told to stop--Really, Horace, it is most annoying! What can
it mean? There is nothing wrong in the district, is there?"

Horace Alexander's eyeglass dropped again. It generally did when he was
asked for a personal opinion; not from any lack of decision in the man
himself, but from that habit of relying on collective as against
individual thought which distinguishes so many clever men nowadays; as
if the mediocre mass could ever outvalue superior sense.

"I cannot conceive that anything serious can be wrong," he began, then
paused almost pathetically before the certainty that his district was
admittedly the best managed in the province. "However," he continued,
virtuously remembering that the communication which stopped his going
to the Big Durbar was strictly confidential, "that is neither here nor
there. I have my orders, so that ends it, and----" he glanced out to
the verandah where the "_durshan_" had re-commenced--"I suppose Rex had
better remain, if you think it safe. I shall be very busy----"

His wife laughed, and stooping over his chair, kissed the top of his
head; it was a trifle bald.

"You dear old stupid," she said kindly. "You've nothing to do with it.
I wouldn't leave him if it wasn't for old Bisvâs! You and I, Horace,
have grown out of--what shall I call it--feudal relations--but we can
understand them. You don't suppose I leave the boy in your charge, do
you? No! My dear man! you're not up to it. But Bisvâs! Bisvâs was your
grandfather's servant when he was a boy, and he swears Rex is the
living image of '_Jullunder Jullunder baba_,' whom, I verily believe,
he mixes up with Alexander the Great! It doesn't do the child any harm,
though it makes him a bit autocratic now. He'll grow out of being King
at school. And really it is a pretty sight to see him with his
bodyguard of those marvellous old dodderers Bisvâs rakes up from the
bazaar----"

"I've seen them," replied her husband gloomily. "I'd have sent them
about their business if they hadn't been old pensioners--and in
uniform----"

Muriel laughed again. "Such uniforms! But they are magnificent to the
child and he's magnificent to them. It's all right, Horace. He is as
pleased as Punch, because I've allowed him, as he can't go to Delhi, to
have a sham coronation here."

"My dear!" protested her husband; but at that moment an old-fashioned
buggy, with a flea-bitten Arab in the shafts, drew up, and Mrs.
Alexander discreetly withdrew before an official visitor.

Ere five minutes were over the new comer rose from the upholstered
chair, went to the four doors of the office room, looked round for
possible eavesdroppers, closed them, then sate down again; for John
Carruthers, the Superintendent of Police, was of the old school. He
suspected everybody. In his heart of hearts Horace Alexander loathed
him: or rather, his methods; but he had to admit that he was an
excellent police officer. Short and stout, he looked as if he had a
trace of native blood in him, anyhow, none understood the ways of
Indian wickednesses better than he.

"This is serious," he said briefly. "I always told you, sir, you would
have to face it some time." Then he paused. "I wonder if anyone
realises the relief it will be to our force when the whole show goes
off well--as it will do! But there's always that off chance--and here
is one----"

"I don't believe it," said Horace Alexander stubbornly; "it is
unthinkable, inconceivable----"

John Carruthers raised his shaggy eyebrows. "Nothing, sir, is
inconceivable in India. There's a lot of lees in four thousand years of
civilisation. So long as it's stagnant, well and good; but if you stir
'em up--However! you don't agree. And _this_----" he touched the
confidential communication--"has got to be seen to."

"Yes! it has got to be seen to--wrong or right," echoed the younger man
firmly. Outside, the sunshine shone in sultry drowsy peace; but within
the closed office room, the air seemed vibrant, as the two, mutually
responsible for so much in their world, looked into each other's eyes
in perfect unanimity. So it is often in India nowadays; something has
to be done and old and new must combine to the doing of it.

"Hullo! what's up?" asked the Superintendent of Police when, having
offered to drive his official superior down to the city, they stepped
into the verandah; and then he smiled. "The youngster seems to be
enjoying himself, eh!"

Under the _sirus_ trees on the opposite side of the drive were drawn up
five old men, headed by Bisvâs, who stood next something that was more
like a monkey than a man; for Bhim Singh, even when he had been the
most swaggering _havildar_ in a Ghurka regiment, had never been tall,
and was now almost incredibly shrunken and old. But his eyes still
looked out sharp and bright from his wizened face and his military
salute shot out smartly at the sight of the masters.

"It is all old Bisvâs' fault," excused Rex's father, giving a disturbed
look at his son and heir, who--with the gilt paper circlet still on his
fuzzy head--was apparently drilling the ancient warriors, "I've told my
wife that it's a mistake, but you see, Bisvâs looked after my
grandfather when they were kids together, and so----"

"And so," interrupted John Carruthers with a chuckle, "you have the
most valuable asset in the world! If I were you I would encourage it!
Good Lord! man!----" he forgot etiquette for the moment--"that sort of
thing is the safety of--of everything."

So the two men drove off to the office, to confer secretly with other
good men and true, and the child, with the gold circlet on his fuzzy
hair, stood in the half shade, half shine of the _sirus_ trees, and
dressed his army autocratically. And the old warriors--there was Bisvâs
who had fought at Sobraon, and Bhim Singh who had fought everywhere
indiscriminately for sheer love of fighting, and old Imân, the hair of
whose body still stood on end as he told tales of how he had waged war
for the Sirkar against his own brothers in Mutiny time, and Pir Khan,
Yusufzai, who still talked of _Nikalseyn sahib_ as if he were not dead,
and last but not least, most ancient of all, a nameless fossil of
humanity called by the others "_Baba_" (father), who bewailed the fact
that he had not been at both sieges of Bhurtpore--these all obeyed the
child's orders, and nodded and winked and swore that he was the living
spit and image of "_Gineral Jullunder Jullunder Sahib Bahadur_," who
had led them to victory again and again. The smallest cavalry officer
in _Jân Kampâni's_ army; but the bravest and the best loved!


                                  II

Three days had passed, and once again the two men sate facing each
other in the tidy, conventional office room. The confidential box was
open and papers littered the table; but the hint of possible trouble
remained still a mere hint.

"And yet," said John Carruthers thoughtfully, "I don't like it. I told
you about that temple incident? Quite a trivial affair, but in my
experience--and that is pretty wide, sir--that sort of thing always
means something. But the fact is, I haven't time----" his bright eyes
grew restless--"to unearth anything."

Horace Alexander smiled. "Because, my dear fellow, there is nothing to
unearth. I told you so from the beginning. I am pretty well up in my
own district, Carruthers----"

"That you may be, sir; but pure anarchism isn't a thing of districts:
it's--what do they call it!--a _zeit geist_! How many fools do you
suppose are in your towns and villages, sir? Well! everyone of them is
a danger if there is a good agitator within hearing. Anyhow, I am so
far dissatisfied, that I am going to propose to you a plan----" He got
up as he had done before, closed every door after a good look round for
eavesdroppers, and finally paused before little Rex, who was sitting in
a corner of the room, playing with a pen and paper and some red and
black ink which his father had given him. His mother having gone off to
the Big Show, which was to take place next day, the little fellow had
been tearful and needed consolation. Now, however, he appeared quite
absorbed in his occupation.

"What are you doing, Rex?" asked John Carruthers.

The child held up a round of white paper with cabalistic signs on it.

"I'm makin' a medal to give to my army," he said with importance. "And
'Wex' is to be in 'wed and so's 'Imp.' Then 'et' will be black, don't
you see?"

The men laughed, and settled themselves over the railway map which John
Carruthers spread out on the table.

"You see," said the police officer in a low voice, "the Royal train
focusses anxiety according to these hints----" he pointed to the
confidential papers--"and I can't help a feeling that they are right.
I've got a sort of second-sight in these ways--perhaps because I was
born and brought up in the country--and I believe there is something in
it. I'd ferret it out if I'd time; but I haven't. So why run risks? The
Royal train is timed to run the sixty odd miles through your district
on the _direct_ line between three and five a.m. to-morrow morning--
just before dawn. Now why should it? Why shouldn't it do the eighty odd
miles of the loop line?"

"But that would bring it right here--right in the very heart----"
interrupted Horace Alexander.

"That wouldn't matter, provided _nobody knew_," came the quick reply.
"And nobody need know--except, of course, the railway bosses. Just look
at it on the map. Points changed at Barâwal Junction--then straight
away, past us, to the northern branch, and so back a bit--only a
bit--to the main line again. It wouldn't delay them half an hour, if
that----"

Horace Alexander's finger traced out the line on the map.

"But the direct line is guarded," he began.

"Inadequately," persisted John Carruthers, "at least, to my mind. Now,
by taking this new loop you are safe. It only needs a telegram--for the
trains haven't begun yet to run at night, and it will be 'line clear'
all through. The usual pilot engine, of course--so no one need know."

Horace Alexander nodded. "No! poor devils!" he assented, a bit
irrelevantly, "and dozens of them would have rejoiced to do
'_durshan_.'"

The child in the corner of the room looked up at the familiar word and
listened.

But the men were too much immersed to notice him.

"Well, it may be wise!" said Horace Alexander at last. "I don't agree
with you, Carruthers, of course. The whole thing's a mare's nest. But,
as you say, it won't disarrange anything. The Royal train will be up to
time for early tea at Sonabad, and there all is safe: so if you'll
drive me down to the telegraph office, I'll send the cipher myself."

"H'm," said John Carruthers thoughtfully, "I wouldn't cipher. Don't
trust 'em a bit. The clerks in my office know 'em, I'm sure. Try
French--it's safer."

Horace Alexander laughed a superior laugh.

"Mine don't! not the _real_ confidential one. Why! I don't suppose you
do."

"That's a different matter," replied the police officer drily.
"However! it's for you to decide."

"Yes," said the District Officer firmly. "Well! goodnight, Rex! I
shan't be back, child, till breakfast to-morrow."

"Where are you going, Daddy?" asked the boy.

"I'm going to do _durshan_," replied his father carelessly.

The child rose and came towards the table with shining eyes, the medal
in his hand.

"Daddy!" he said, "I should like to do '_durshan_' too. Mayn't I?"

His father shook his head and smiled. "Impossible, Rex! You can't ride
forty miles over the desert along a railway as I shall, can you? You
wouldn't like to do what Daddy's got to do to-night, I can tell you,
young man! Wait a while! Your turn'll come." He was busy locking the
confidential box.

"But I meant _here_, Daddy," persisted the child.

"Here?" echoed his father carelessly, "Oh! here! Yes! You and old
Bisvâs can amuse yourselves with doing _durshan_ as much as you like.
Now good-night--and--and be sure to say your prayers, Rex." He stooped
down to kiss the child, and as he did so, "_Rex Imp_" in red with the
_et_ in black, caught his eye. "Rex, Imp," he muttered, "not a bad name
for you, though you're a good little chap on the whole."

And he went off, feeling virtuous. Whatever his own beliefs, or rather
lack of belief, might be, no one could say that he was forcing it
prematurely on the weaker brother. Perhaps, however, the thought that
his little son's lips--which had never to his knowledge been soiled by
a lie--had begged dear God to take care of his Daddy, was unconsciously
a help to the man during the anxious night. For it was anxious. To be
responsible meant much to both those men, and this sudden change of
plan--though it certainly removed risk--threw a still heavier burden of
care on the shoulders of those two who had suggested it.

Therefore, when, just as the primrose dawn of another day had begun to
dissipate the shadows of the night, the Royal train, safe and sound,
steamed into the station at Sonabad, Horace Alexander and John
Carruthers looked at each other as they stood on the platform and
positively laughed.

"That nightmare's over," said the latter.

"I always said it was a mare's nest," replied the former.

"Well! we needn't quarrel about it now. I've handed over charge to
Evesham, and you to Coleridge, and that's all. And I shall be glad to
have a cup of tea. I've been too busy to eat for the last few days."

Half-an-hour afterwards they were in Horace Alexander's motor, going
full speed along the Grand Trunk road.

"We shall be back by breakfast time," said John Carruthers, whose
thoughts ran upon food.

But Horace, as he steered his way past the long lines of lumbering
wains laden with corn, which still, in India, cling to the roads,
despite railways, was jubilant over his district.

"I told you it was all right," he said finally, "but you and your
sort, Carruthers, can't see that we are in a new age. We are out of the
past----"

"That doesn't look like it," interrupted John Carruthers, pointing to a
group in the verandah; for at that moment the car swept easily into the
gateway of Horace Alexander's house. The latter frowned, for Rex's army
was awaiting them, drawn up to stiff military salute, while in front of
them, his small broad face full of smiles, was Rex himself holding a
box in his hand.

"We got it, Daddy!" he shouted. "We got it all 'wight, and the men 'wan
away, and Baba-jee emptied it, because he was the older-est, and it's
all quite 'wight."

"Good God," cried John Carruthers, leaping out of the car, his eyes
almost out of his head. "It's an infernal machine. I--I--I--'ve
seen--'em--before--I--I----"

Horace Alexander turned pale as ashes. "Put it down, Rex.
Gently--gently--but--but----"

Old Bisvâs salaamed down to the ground. "The Presence need not fear.
The child did not touch it, of course, till the poisonous thing had
been emptied of its venom."

"But how----" began Horace Alexander helplessly.

John Carruthers, however, had his wits about him, and said in a low
voice, "Look here, sir! This had better be kept dark; for the present,
anyhow."

Old Imân, who understood a little English, nodded approvingly.
"Without doubt it is a concealed word," he said suavely. "And
so I told Bisvâs. Therefore none know of it save those here present.
So we had to do often in Mutiny time when news meant much; and
_Gineral-Jullunder-Jullunder-sahib-bahadur_ would say----"

The police officer cut the old man's reminiscence short. "You have done
well, _risildar-jee_," he said curtly, but the praise brought an
unwonted flush to the withered cheek. "We'd better hear the story _in
camera_, sir."

So the five old warriors filed into the office room, the doors were
shut, and Rex sate on his father's knee, while John Carruthers
carefully examined the infernal machine which had been laid on the
table.

"Paris," he said laconically, "one of the latest sort. What did I tell
you, sir--anarchy isn't a thing of districts."

"Go on, Bisvâs!" replied Horace Alexander evasively.

"As I was saying, Huzoor, when the Huzoor left to do _durshan_ last
night, _Jullunder Baba_ came to me and said, 'Bisvâs! get ready to go
and do _durshan_ likewise; my father said I might----'"

"And you did, daddy, didn't you?" broke in the little lad's voice
confidently. His father hesitated, then remembering his uncomprehending
words, nodded and held the child closer.

"So I, knowing that the word of _Jullunder Baba_ is even as the word of
a King, unbreakable, said, 'But whither, my lord?' And he said, 'That
will I show thee! Do thou as thou art bid, slave!' Now the night, as
the Huzoor knows, was dark, and I grow old. So I bethought me of help,
lest evil should befall. Therefore I said, 'Lo! it is not meet to go
without the Army.' So these came willingly. For, see you, Protector of
the Poor, we are all old, and the _durshan_ is even as the sight of a
god--it heals sin. Therefore, in the darkness we set off, and I wrapped
the _chota sahib_ in blankets and took the _trick_ lamp and a _ternus_
of hot milk also----"

John Carruthers looked up.

"He means electric and thermos," said Horace Alexander, with an odd
sort of cackle in his voice; something seemed to have risen in his
throat and prevented his speaking clearly.

"We carried the _chota sahib_ by turns, seeing there might have been
serpents in the way," continued the old man, "and made for the railway,
since that was all the direction _Jullunder Baba_ would give. Then
Imân, remembering the old tomb--the Huzoor will remember it also, since
there was a case about it in his court----"

"And the Huzoor," broke in Imân, "decided virtuously, that being the
tomb of a saint, it should stand, and the railway move----"

"Remembering it," went on old Bisvâs, "he said, 'It would give shelter
to the child.' So thither we went, and there the _chota sahib_, having
remembered he had not said his prayers as he had promised the Huzoor,
said them. He knelt, Huzoor, on that slab, lest the floor should be
damp----"

"Yes," assented the child's father as the old man paused. Once
again there was that lump in his throat. He saw, as in a vision, the
old Mahomedan tomb rearing its half-ruined dome so close to the
railway--the white-faced child praying God to bless everyone he loved,
those dark faces standing round reverently.

"Lo!" continued old Bisvâs gently, "I think the saint down below must
have heard--Imân says he did--for what followed was of no man's making.
We were all drowsing in the tomb--'tis a good five miles from the
Huzoor's bungalow to the railway, for all it goes so near to the
city--when _Baba-jee_--he hath the ears of a mouse still--said 'Hist!'

"So I looked out, and there were men--five or six of them, on the line.
Then it came to me what the ill-begotten hounds had been doing in
Bengal, and a sort of fury seized on me. So I crept back. _Jullunder
Baba_ was asleep among the blankets on the tomb slab, but I whispered
the others, and they unbuckled their swords and made ready."

The faces of the four old warriors who, standing two on one side two on
the other of the speaker, had watched his every word, were a study.
Exultation, pride, absolute satisfaction showed in every line of them,
and the lean old fingers gripped their sword-hilts once more.

"Then _Baba-jee_ gave the word--he was '_senior-orfficer_,'
and--and--Huzoor, they ran away!!!"

Even John Carruthers' chuckle had a suspicion of a sob in it.

"And then! Oh! hero!" he said, "what then?"

"Huzoor! I looked out over the desert and far, far away on the straight
line I saw light. And there was a faint rumble in the air. It was a
train. Mayhap the _chota sahib_ had been right, mayhap it was the
Train-of-Majesty! So I turned on the 'trick lamp,' and there it was on
the line--that thing--it had a string to it that lay on the rail.
And--and--Huzoor! my memory fails me--There was the child, and there
was the train!--I had to decide----

"Then I cried to Imân, 'Quick! the _chota sahib_! Run far with
him--far!--far!' So when that was done I up with my sword and I smote
the string that lay on the rail!----" he paused, then went on--

"So that was done also; and Imân brought the child back, and the train
sped past, and we all stood in a row and did _durshan_; though I know
not if it was _durshan_ or not, since, mayhap, it was not the Royal
train after all."

The old eyes looked almost wistfully at those two men in office, but
the child's were on his father's confidently:

"But it _was_ the Royal train, wasn't it, daddy?" said the child's
voice, and Horace Alexander's answered huskily:

"Perhaps it was, _Rex_; anyhow, you and the others did _durshan_. Of
that I am sure."

Content settled to those two faces, the old and the young, and the
ancient warrior went on--

"Then there was nothing to do, Huzoor, save to come home and bring the
poisonous thing with us. I was for sending the _chota sahib_ on in
Imân's care and carrying the thing myself; but _Jullunder Baba_ would
not go without it. So Bhim and the Father took the devil's box apart
lest it should kill everyone, and with Bhim's _kukri_ they prized it
open"--a faint sigh came from the Europeans--"and spilt the witches'
brew in the sand. That is all, Huzoor! Your slaves did what they could.
The men ran away so fast, it was not possible for us, aged ones, to
pursue them."

"But," broke in the most aged, "they were dressed like the Huzoors--in
trousers, and my sword was bloody, so I must have hit someone."

"And so was mine," said each of the ancient warriors in turn.

Horace Alexander cleared his throat.

"Really!" he began, "I scarcely know how to thank----"

"Daddy!" said Rex's eager voice, "I know! I'm goin' to give each of 'em
my army medal with '_Wex_ and _Imp_ in 'wed, and _et_ in black on it;
an' they'll be orful pleased--won't you, Army?"

"Huzoor!" The old arms were stiff in salute, and then the oldest voice
struck up quaveringly. "Lo! _sahibân_! it is enough for us that we have
done _durshan_ ere death. It brings contentment, even though both
sieges of Bhurtpore is denied to some of us."

As, led by Rex, they marched out to the verandah, the two officials
looked at one another.

But they said nothing for a minute. Then John Carruthers burst out:

"Damn the cipher! I told you it wasn't safe. Look here, sir, we must
keep this quiet for the time."

Horace Alexander nodded.




                          THERE AROSE A MAN


This was one of the many stories which Nathaniel James Craddock told me
in the cab of his engine while we used to go up and down that ribbon of
red brick metalling edged with steel which was slowly laying itself out
over a wide sandy desert.

Some of these were tragic, some comic, some betwixt and between; but
most of them were worth the re-telling, especially as told by him. But
the discursiveness of his method does not lend itself to print, so they
all suffer in the process; even though, as I write, I seem to hear the
steady grind of the engine, to feel the fine fretting of a sand storm
on my cheek, and see the clear blue eyes looking at me with a keenness
which always came as a surprise out of that bleared dissipated face.

"It was 'arter I 'ad that peep o' the Noo Jerusalem, sir, at the bottom
o' the King's Well, 'as I come upon pore old 'Oneyman. I was a bit on
the loose, you see, sir; them sort o' peeps wakes up the spiritooal
nater o' a man, an' it's heads I win, tails you lose, if 'e takes to
prayers or to drink. I tuk to the latter"--here he gave a slight cough,
and added gently--"more nor usual. An' so I come across 'Oneyman. 'E'd
'ad a peep o' hell, sir, for 'e'd seen 'is wife's dead body lyin' where
he'd left 'er safe an' sound waitin' for 'er baby to be born in doo
time." There was always a biblical twang about Craddock's recitations
which gave them a mournfully dignified tone. "'E 'ad friends in 'igh
places, sir, an' one o' them, w'en he come through 'is brain fever,
made 'im Conservancy Inspector down Bandelkhand way. It wasn't the
place for 'im. They was wot they call Suckties, sir, down there, though
there was precious little o' the babe an' sucklin' about _their_
methods, but contrariwise, battle an' murder an' sudden death. They was
for ever killin' goats an' kids, an' smearin' ole Mother Kâli with
blood--never knew such chaps for paintin' the town red! So the
_Khush-boo sahib_,[3] as they call him in their topsy turvey way, since
it weren't perfoom but real stinks down by them temple steps, couldn't
never forget the sights he see in Mutiny time. When 'e was in 'is cups,
'e'd sit an' cry about it; for 'e was a little bit of a man, sir, the
smallest man as ever I see, an' all wrinkled like an' wizened; just for
all the world the same as the monkeys as used to come down in crowds on
feast days, an' leg it with the orferings folk used to bring to ole
Mother Kâli. That's 'ow 'Oneyman come on reduction, as the sayin' is;
tho', pore chap, them as look on 'is face might a-seen that 'e wasn't
for long; not even if they'd made 'im Guv'ner-General-in-Council; for
what with--savin' your presence, sir--a galloping consumption, both o'
drink an' lungs, 'e was wearin' away like snowdrifts in summer."
Here Craddock paused to whistle a familiar tune. "Beg pardin, sir, but
it comes home to me so, for he was awful fond of 'is wife. Well!
whether it was 'is name--'Oneyman, you know, sir, being the God o'
monkeys[4]--or whether it was 'is nater, he was uncommon kind to the
_bunder logue_. Used to say they was the only Christians in the place,
'cos they wouldn't 'ave no meat offered to hidols, sir. An' it's true
as gospel, sir, they wouldn't. You should a' seen them waitin' in the
trees, and hover the arches an' crocketty things on the temples, while
three or four smug Brahmins was going the rounds with a party o'
country folk, full up o' sugar candies, an' parched rice, an' platters
o' curds to leave at each 'oly spot. It was a rare sight; for, you see,
the monkeys were 'oly too, an' the priests dursn't even 'eave a brick
at 'em.

"They 'ad just to lump it when the beasts 'oofed away with all the best
things afore their very eyes. An' 'Oneyman used to amoose himself of an
evening by sittin' on the steps an' larfin' fit to split. I told 'im it
weren't perlite; but there! it ain't no use talkin' to a man as has
seen 'is wife lyin' dead.

"Then one day an ole buck monkey 'oofed it with a bag of rupees, an'
dropped it, as 'e was climbin' a tree, above 'Oneyman's 'ead. And
'Oneyman, being in no state to know 'is own 'and, much less wot it
'eld, gathered some of 'em up, an' swore 'e'd keep 'em. That's 'ow it
was. So 'e got the sack: though anyone as had eyes might a-seen it was
the weddin' garment o' a shroud _he_ was wantin', pore chap.

"I was runnin' ballast then on a bit o' new line that was cuttin' its
way through jungle land, yard by yard an' inch by inch. It give one a
sorter shock, sir, every day, as I come up with my trucks, to find the
engine goin' so much further, an' yet to get 'eld up at last by the
same ole blocking o' trees an' creepers an' butterflies an' all that.
Seemed as though there wasn't nothin' else before one, and as if it
wasn't no use trying to get through with it. But they give me good
wage, specially after they tuk to runnin' o' nights too, so I was able
to put my hand into my breeches pocket when 'Oneyman said, 'You don't
'appen to 'ave a five-rupee about you, do'ee Craddock, for I ain't got
a feather to fly with.' Then my stoker tuk sick an' I managed ter get
'Oneyman as _local demon_. It didn't 'urt no one, you see, sir, for I
done both works without turnin' more 'airs than 'ad to turn with two
shirts, one dryin' the other; an' it give 'Oneyman time to die
respectable an' quiet like at the back o' the lamp room in the junction
where I 'ad my diggings. Not that it was much of a 'quiet and secluded
'ome for an invalid,' sir, specially after orders come to push on the
work as much as may be before His Honner the Guv'ner or some such
bigwig, I disremember which, come on tower. Still, 'e got a sight
better, an' I used to tote 'im about as stoker up an' down the line,
an' many a time as 'e see me 'angin' out my shirt to dry, 'e'd say,
pitiful like, 'It had ought ter be mine; but I'd do as much for
Nathaniel James Craddock if I could.' And he done it, sir, in the end,
for I should a' lost my billet but for 'im.

"This is 'ow it 'appened. The monkeys weren't no better after 'Oneyman
left, but rather the worse. They was more Christian-like than ever, an'
wouldn't 'ave no bowings down in the house of Rumnings. It got so bad
as the Suckties couldn't stand 'em no more; but it was some leeches as
a down-country man brought as done the trick at last. I don't mean
proper blood leeches, sir, but them whited-sepulcre-the-other-way-round
fruits as is marocky leather outside, an' my golly! in--Well! the 'ead
bottlewasher Brahman, 'im as they called the Gossoon--though w'y, I
can't say, since the only gossoon I ever 'eard tell on was a Hirish
gentleman in the Colleen Bawn--was dead on leeches--'e was a real blood
leech 'imself, if you like--but, though 'e kep 'is eye on them all the
time 'e was palavering away about Mai Kâli an' Shiv-_jee_, the ole buck
monkey was too much for 'im, an' 'e 'ad nothin' but the marocky leather
trimmings as come floatin' down peaceful-like on 'is bald 'ead and big
stummick as he stud dancin' with rage while _bunder-jee_ was eatin' the
my golly.

"That, as I said, done the trick. There was a gold-printed letter come
from Mai Kâli ter say she was lonesome away in the jungles without 'er
Hunoomân--or some such rot. Then 'is Honner the bigwig was coming, an'
so on, an' so on. It ain't 'ard to do that sort o' thing, sir, w'en you
don't have no Ten Commandments an' everyone is so accustomed to lying
that it don't strike 'em as odd.

"How they done it, I don't know. All I know is that one moonlick night
I saw the signal against me as I was running through to the junction
with sand I'd bin far to fetch. And I didn't like it. I'd bin away two
days without 'Oneyman, and bein' a bit lonesome I'd perraps had a drop
too much. Or perraps it was the moonlick night as done it." Here
Craddock's voice took on a hushed tone. "It wasn't like the Noo
Jerusalem, sir, or them yaller bottles in the chimist's shop as I used
to think was 'eaven when I was learning my dooty to my neighbour. There
wasn't nothin' glittery about it, nothin' to make you think of the far
away. It was there, right down beside you on the engine, cold an'
clear, taking the colour out of every mortal thing, till there weren't
no difference a'twixt earth an' sky; till the pin point of the pole
star wasn't no brighter than--than the safety valve; for I keeps 'em
bright, you see, sir." Here he laid his hand affectionately on the
throttle. "So I wasn't that pleased at 'aving to 'old up, specially as
I was a bit late and 'ad to get through the junction afore tha Bigwig's
train was due--for 'e was comin' that night.

"'Wot's up?' I sings out to the station-master, with an oath.

"'E laughed. 'Two truck load caged monkeys, zoological specimens rate,
attendant priests in charge, consigned to Mai Kâli. We'll hitch 'em on
behind in no time. Superintendent's orders.'

"Well, sir! it was no use swearin'; so they was 'itched up, and I went
on full steam, givin' them Brahmins a bit o' a swing, wot with the
'eavy sand in front an' the cages behind. The junction was all lit up
an' decorated for the Bigwig, flags a-flying an' red baize all along
the platform. 'E was to dine there, and the refreshment room looked
A 1--a reg'lar spread, I call it. An' there was the Superintendent,
waitin' in 'is best uniform----" Craddock paused as if to emphasise
further remarks. "'E was a real bone-silly man--there ain't no other
word for 'im, sir--bone-silly down to the last drop o' marrow. I dunno
if it was the sight o' 'im, or the drink I 'ad on board, but I forgot
to choke 'er down in time, an' we went over the points at a rattlin'
pace.

"The sand, being 'eavy, took 'em steady, but the zoological
consignment, being light, didn't. It ran off the rail, lurched into a
shed, upset, and before you cud say 'knife' there was a matter of two
'undred or more o' the specimens let loose in that there junction."

He paused again and shook his head sorrowfully. "It ain't no use tryin'
to describe it, sir. All you got to do is say ''ell an' tommy' and
leave it alone.

"'Craddock!' shrieks the Superintendent, as I stud laughin' fit to
split, as I see limber-legs at their old games, 'make that brute give
up my helmet or I'll--I'll----' Then 'e got speechless, save for bad
words, sir. You never see such a huproar. Red baize, tore to strips,
festooning the roof, 'God bless our Bigwig' flutterin' in bits like a
paperchase down the platforms, an' the mail train due in 'arf an hour.

"'You--you brought 'em 'ere, you scoundrel!' shrieks the
Superintendent, 'take 'em away again or I'll--I'll----' an' again he
refrained even from good words, sir. But 'e was bone-silly. Not as
anyone cud do anything; leastways, not till 'Oneyman step out of the
lamp room in 'is pyjamas, lookin' more dead nor alive. But there was
somethin' in his hair, sir, as made me feel as a man had arose in
Israel, for all he was so small.

"'You leave it to me,' he says, confident like; then he turns to the
bone-silly Superintendent as stood dumbfounded, staring at 'im as if 'e
were Lazarus noo raised. 'There's five an' twenty minutes yet, sir,' he
says, 'afore His Honner's train's doo. On _my_ honner as Josiah
'Oneyman, I'll 'ave 'em safe out by then--only I won't 'ave no one
a-interfering--everyone's got to obey my horders, and mine honly.'

"The bone-silly one hadn't a word to say, there was somethin' so awful
majestic about the little man in 'is pyjamas, pore chap.

"Lordy, sir! you should 'ave 'eard him next with they Suckti Brahmins
as was rubbing their bruises an' calling on Mai Kâli for assistance.

"'She ain't in it, sonnies, nor the chaps as you bamboozle, neither,'
he said, said he. 'It's you as 'ave to make a offerin' yourselves this
time, so it'll make a 'ole in your _pockets_ as well as your
_stummicks_, my boys. An' it's no use your saying you ain't got no
rupees--your credit's good enough for that.' An' here he waved 'is
'and, sir, to the row o' sweetmeat-sellers' booths and stalls as was
sot just outside the iron railings. You seen 'em, sir. You know 'ow
they looks at night. Harf a dozen trays piled up full o' treacle
stuff an' greese, with a hoil _butti_ flaring an' smoking on the
top of a pile o' their beastly toffee an' dribbling through it to
give the dead flies a-stickin' to it a flavour. Yes! you've seen the
'_met-aiy-yen-shee-yen_'"--here he gave an excellent rendering of the
sweetmeat sellers' cry--"an' so've I--an' 'ad to eat it, too, w'en I
was 'ard put to it. Well! 'e got the lot in, brass platters an' all,
an' then began the rummiest go you ever see. W'en I was a boy, sir, in
quires an' places w'ere they sing, parson use ter make us run through
the service so as to get the Amens right up to time--it's 'arder nor
runnin' a mail train, though you wouldn't believe it, sir. Well! they
Suckti Brahmans 'ad to do the 'ole caboodle, same as if ole Mother Kâli
was sitting like a spider with 'er eight red legs an' harms on the top
of each sand-truck. For you see, sir, they was standin' fair an' square
on the lines, engine's steam up, et cetera. It was a rare sight. The
monkeys was fine an' pleased with the red baize an' the flags an' the
motters, but the moment they 'eard them Brahmans begin to chant, they
cock their tails an' listen, an' the ole buck monkey 'e clomb crafty
along the girders so's to be ready to drop down so soon's he could. But
'Oneyman 'ad 'is views, an' wasn't goin' to be give away prematoor; so
'e kep a Suckti gennoflexing by each platter o' toffee until every
truck 'ad its altar. Then 'e clumb up to the engine, an' beckon me to
foller.

"I was standin' with one fut on the step when he shouted to the
Suckties, 'Hands off.' I give you my word, sir, it weren't 'arf a
minute before them trucks was covered as black as flies with
them monkeys, grabbing an' yelling an' searchin' out for
_met-aiy-en-sher-een_ like all possessed, for they were main hungry,
'avin' bin shut up all the arternoon. So there was our chanst, an' I
was just leapin' in to put on steam, w'en that bone-silly ass of a
Superintendent says, says 'e, 'You 'aven't got the baton.' An' sure
'nuff I 'adn't. For it was a single line, you see, sir, an' we 'ad to
run a mile or two through a signal station afore branchin' off. Of
course, I didn't ought to 'ave noticed 'is remark, but took the chance;
but there it is! I was a bit on, an' I'd laughed fit to split my sides,
let alone my 'ead. So I putt down my fut agin, an' made to go fetch it,
when the engine she gave a screech an' started full speed. Whether
'Oneyman thought I was aboard, or whether he thought 'e 'ad no time to
lose, I never knew, for after that 'twas no laughin' matter, I can tell
you. But there wasn't much time, for as I run down the platform to
'urry up the baton, I see some o' the platters nigh empty already, an'
they monkeys looking as if they were makin' ready to 'oof it. So when
the screech come I turn back; but I was too late. She 'ad ten mile an
hour on her afore I lep upon the back buffer, seeing there wasn't no
other way o' getting along. An' then, sir"--Craddock drew his hand over
his mouth, thoughtfully--"what come next sobered me in a jiffy. Talk o'
the ride to Khiva! it wasn't in it to the ride I 'ad on the back buffer
o' those sand trucks! Thirty, forty, fifty mile an hour, trundlin'
along a consignment of A 1 devils from the nethermost 'ell. It was 'arf
fright with them, sir, an' 'arf fury. As we scud past the signal
station, full speed, I see the _babu_ fall on 'is face, an' cry
'_dohai! dohai!_' as if 'twere the Day o' Judgment.

"An' then, sir, I begun to think o' that blockin' o' trees an' creepers
an' butterflies, as was sure to crop up somewhere, closer or furder,
and to wonder if 'Oneyman knew w'en to put on the brake; for 'e was
only a stoker an' not one at that. Lordy, sir, we must a-bin a queer
sight, rushin' through the moonlick night, with the engine flarin' fit
to bust, a full cargo of devils from 'ell dancin' an' whoopin' an'
'owlin' like all possessed, an' Nathanial James Craddock astride the
hoff buffer. I tell you, sir, if any one 'ad said 'whip be'ind,' I'd
a-got down; but I didn't want to leave pore old 'Oneyman off my own
bat.

"So there we were; but the little fireflies didn't seem to care. I see
'em from the buffer as we flew past, eddyin' up an' down, an' round an'
round, just twinklin' among the trees like the stars up aloft--just as
unreasonable-like an' careless as if there wasn't nothin' to worry
about in this world--and there ain't, sir, since all flesh is grass, as
the man said to the vegetarian. And then we come to the beginning of
the end o' the line, but there weren't no slackenin' down o' steam; so
I prepare to jump----

"An' jump I did. When I come to myself the moonlick was as peaceful as
the grave. The engine 'ad cooled down, an' there weren't no sign o'
life anywhere. Only a 'eap of wreckage. I found pore old 'Oneyman lying
dead, chucked clean out o' the cab. 'E 'adn't no mark on 'im, an'
somehow it seemed to me as if 'e 'ad died natural afore we run slap
bang into the blockin' o' trees. For 'e knew enuff about stokin', sir,
to turn off steam. I wouldn't a-took 'im on if 'e 'adn't.

"But there weren't a sign o' them monkeys, sir; an' wot's more, there's
never bin one seen in that there jungle since."

Here Craddock rose, yawned, and passed over to the cranks and handles
and valves. The next instant an ear-piercing whistle rang through the
dust-laden air, seeming to set it a-quiver.

"That's to rouse old Meditations, sir," he said cheerfully; "but it
won't do it. 'E's petrified to 'is place, an' I shall 'ave to lift 'im
out o' the way, as per usual."

From afar I could see, like a speck upon the receding ribbon of rail,
an immovable figure on the Permanent Way.




                              DRY GOODS


"Mr. Blooker, sir," said the head clerk severely, "no one whose chest
measurement is under thirty-two inches has any right to beat time to
'Rule, Britannia,' even when it is played by a German band in the
street."

A small man whose desk stood nearest the office window, against which a
City fog lay like yellow cotton wool, blushed, apologised incoherently,
and returned to fair general averages.

The other clerks tittered, since this was a recurring criticism. For,
though Alexander Blooker's chest measurement made active patriotism
impossible, the heart within it was full of that sentiment. This was
unmistakable when he boomed forth solid songs of the past, such as the
"Death of Nelson" and the "Soldier's Tear," in his big solid bass
voice; the more modern ditties about "beggars" and "gurls" and "kids"
and "khaki" being, he assured his club, "unsuitable to his organ." And
Alexander Blooker was very proud of his organ.


               "_Never, never, never will be slaves_."


Quite unconsciously his dutiful pen punctuated each quaver and
semi-quaver, though in his heart of hearts he knew that he himself had
been a slave all his life. First to an old aunt who had lately died
full of self-satisfaction because she left him fifty pounds out of the
money she had saved from the earnings he had brought home to her all
his working life; and secondly to the head clerk, Mr. Mossop. Such a
kind, good----

"Blooker, please!" chanted the office boy, showing round the glass
screen.

It was the voice of Fate. Wondering vaguely whether this unusual
call to the innermost Holy of Holies, "Our Firm," presaged
dismissal--possibly for punctuating patriotism--he went meekly.

And he returned as he went, to sit down solidly once more to fair
general averages. The other clerks waited for a remark, but none came;
so the pens scraped and scraped until time was up.

Then, when the office was empty, save for himself and Alexander, Mr.
Mossop, the head clerk, went over to the latter's desk.

"We can finish that for you, Mr. Blooker," he said, "you have much to
do."

"Thank you, sir," came the solemn reply, "I am much obliged to you,
sir, but I would rather complete it myself, sir, before going to----"
Then decorum gave way. "Mr. Mossop, sir," he continued wildly, "am I on
my 'ed or on my 'eels? I can't believe it--and it is all your doing,
sir. I feel sure 'Our Firm' wouldn't never have done it if you hadn't
spoken for me, and--and--I don't know whether I am on my 'ed or my
'eels!"

As a rule Alexander Blooker struggled successfully with the accent of
Cockaigne, but in times of stress, and especially when using certain
set phrases, he adhered to it as if he felt it added forcefulness of
expression.

There was a suspicion of a tear in his pale blue eye, and Mr. Mossop
felt inclined to brace him up by telling him the truth; namely, that
"Our Firm" contemplated in the near future closing the Distant Depot to
the charge of which he had been appointed. Briefly, it did not pay:
Germany had got at the markets in the way that Germany has, when
competition is old-fashioned. But Alexander Blooker's face came up from
the ledger over which it had bent itself for a moment with an
expression on it that startled Mr. Mossop out of contemptuous
compassion.

"I am going to run this job on my own, sir," he began eagerly; "I'm
going to work it on Imperial lines----"

"H'm--we are not at the debating club, Mr. Blooker," interrupted the
head clerk; but Alexander was beyond recall; his voice took on the
blatant tone of the public speaker.

"Shrinkage in trade follows shortage in piece goods, and our piece
goods is short. Germany's ain't. I don't say that 'Our Firm' is as bad
as most, but there's a cool quarter yard out of the forty for rubbage
border and all that. Besides, mind you, some of 'em goes as far as
three-quarters!--a _cool_-three-quarters!!--and why not? If you tike a
hinch why not tike a hell!"

This was apparently quite conclusive, for the head clerk hastily
changed the subject to the necessary preparations. But two days could
be allowed, as the Distant Depot lay up a river that was only navigable
for six months in the year; and four of these were already overpast. It
was rather a rush, but the present occupant of the post had
unexpectedly accepted the agency of a liquor shop; and the half-yearly
market must not find "Our Firm" without a representative. So the first
mail--it was a journey of six or seven weeks--must be the one. If any
money was wanted--"Thank you, sir," replied Alexander Blooker; "the
fifty pounds of my own that my aunt left me will do for the present:
by-and-by perhaps----"

He looked mysterious, but he said no more to anyone; unless he
whispered something to the glass case illustrating cotton manufactures
in the Imperial Institute, which had always had an especial fascination
for him. Despite his hurry, he was looking at the peculiarly broad
borders of a pile of piece goods and muttering under his breath, "If
you tike a hinch you may as well tike a hell," when a man of gold lace
and buttons found him, after closing time, and hustled him by corridors
of Imperial pickle bottle into the Sahara of Exhibition Road.

Within two months he was--to use his own expression--"taking down the
shutters" in a very different desert. For the "Distant Depot" lay at
the Back o' Beyont. Whereabouts in the World-Circle matters nothing.
Briefly, it was one of those advancing tentacles of civilisation
boasting the Mission-House, the Dry-Goods-Store or two and the
Whisky-Shop, which carry between them civilisation to the aboriginal.
Beyond it lay desolation, except for a single telegraph wire which
spanned the void towards the west, instead of following the tortuous
curves of the river (now sinking into sandbanks), which after a long
course south-eastward eventually found itself at the same goal--the
sea-board. There was no town to speak of; only a cluster of leaf-huts,
besides the Mission-House and Chapel, the two Stores and the
Liquor-Shop. And these were so close clustered that to Alexander
Blooker, when he rose to look out over his new world on the morning
after his arrival, it seemed as if the bell which was being rung from
the Chapel was a general invitation to pray, and buy, and drink.

But it was a pretty little place. A real oasis in the surrounding
desert of sands, and almost bewilderingly green amidst thickets of
banana trees.

A tall fat man showed in the verandah of the opposition.

"_Guten, morgen, mien freund_," he called, with superb indifference. "I
gif you welcome."

That was doubtless Franz Braun, the German rival, and Alexander Blooker
hated him at sight; but he kept his dignity.

"The same to you, sir," he replied stiffly, "I trust trade is good."

"It is goot for me," remarked Franz Braun, with an air for which
Alexander Blooker could have kicked him. That being impossible owing to
their relative sizes, the little man relieved his bellicose feelings by
beginning on "'Twas in Trafalgar Bay." It still had for him the charm
of novelty to be able to beat time when and where he chose.

"_Mein Gott!_" shouted Franz Braun excitedly over the way. "_Wass fur
eine Stimme! Wunderbar!_"

It was the voice that did it. But for it the armed neutrality of the
past between the rival firms might have remained in the future; as it
was, an hour afterwards Alexander Blooker was politely but steadily
refusing to sing a second to the "Wacht am Rhein," although Franz Braun
(who had an equally good high tenor, after the fashion of tall burly
men) wept on his shoulder and called him "_Bruderlein_."

"You must to the pastor-house this evening," sighed the big creature at
last, "Fraulein Anna, who is to the Pastor Schmidt daughter, will make
you sing. She is _my verlobte_. I will to her be married, but she will
make you sing."

Nevertheless, neither her yellow hair nor her blue eyes beguiled
Alexander Blooker from his fixed determination; but they sang together
for half the night, and the memory of Fraulein Anna's soaring soprana,
as the notes of "Oh! for the wings of a dove" floated into the hot air,
was with him as, despite the lateness of the hour, he set all in
readiness for the morrow. Since on the next day's doings much depended;
for it was the yearly market-day, on which all the native traders from
far and near came to buy goods. Alexander Blooker, in fact, had hurried
his _doongah_ up the sinking river so as to reach the Distant Depot in
time for it. His last task was the undoing of one of the small bales
which throughout their journey had been the objects of his special
care.

"It you tike a' hinch you may as well tike the h'ell," he murmured, as
he cut the packing threads by the dim light--for he had refused to use
the "Made in Germany" lamp of his predecessor. Then, with a sigh of
satisfaction, he held up the top one of the hard-pressed pile of
printed cotton handkerchiefs.

"That ought to fetch 'em," he said admiringly. Certainly it might
have "fetched" anything and everything. To use heraldic terms, the
field of the kerchief was gules, argent and azure, arranged in
_saltire_--otherwise, a Union Jack. An _escutcheon of pretence_ bore
the Queen's head _regardant_, while _quarterly_, _en surtout_, were: on
the first, _gules_, three lions _passant_, or, for England; on the
second, or, a lion _rampant_ within a double _tressure flory counter
flory_, _gules_, for Scotland; on the third, azure, a harp, _or_,
stringed _argent_, for Ireland; on the fourth?--well!--why the fourth
field should have been charged with specimens from a pack of cards,
Alexander Blooker did not know. It was a blot on the _scutcheon_, no
doubt; but two days had not sufficed for the printing of a special
design, and this was the best he had been able to find. Besides, in a
measure, it was true. There was no blinking the fact that even British
civilisation was apt to bring gambling and drinking with it.

The next day the whole place was full up with native traders and
natives generally. The first sight of them made Alexander Blooker
wonder why they were so eager for piece goods, considering how little
of them they wore! But then he had hardly realised that beyond that
northerly desert lay a huge tract of densely-populated, almost unknown
land.

Trade was brisk over the way at Franz Braun's store. The cheap German
muslins, guaranteed full length, and packed in convenient carriageable
size, went off like smoke; and it was not until the best lots had gone
off that a trader thought it worth while to give a perfunctory glance
at Alexander Blooker's consignments. Then his eye fell instantly on the
heraldic handkerchiefs.

"Sell, how much?" he asked.

Alexander Blooker shook his head. "They are not for sale, sir," he
replied loftily. "They are a gift. An Imperial gift from Her Gracious
Majesty the Queen of England. Everyone as buys forty yards of English
stuff has one of them given in, free, gratis, and for nothin'. Him as
buys two, has three, and so on--much the same as parcel post rates."

It took two interpreters to bring home this admixture of patriotism and
progressive bribery to the limited brains of purchasers, but when it
did find its way into their understanding, the effect was marvellous.
Before the sun set Alexander Blooker had to conceal his last bale of
handkerchiefs against the year which must elapse before he could get a
new supply.

"So! _mein freund_," said Franz Braun, with a good-natured laugh. "It
is well; but it is not trade!"

"It will be trade," replied little Alexander stoutly. "I am going to
work this job on Imperial lines."

It grew to be a joke in this Distant Depot, as it had been in the City
office where the yellow fog lay on the windows like cotton wool; but
here Mr. Blooker had liberty to beat time to anything he chose. And it
was surprising how the natives took to him. He must have spent a good
deal of his fifty pounds on the purchase of medicines, for his morning
dispensary soon out-rivalled Pastor Schmidt's--who, in truth, was
growing a bit old for the work. He had lost his wife of late years, his
daughter was betrothed to Franz Braun (who had a promise of a post
elsewhere), and the hearts of all three held hope of change in the near
future which hindered much enthusiasm in the present. Not that there
had ever been much of it in their lives; even the old missionary had
gone on his way coolly, if conscientiously.

Alexander Blooker, on the contrary, was always at fever heat. He
managed to transfer some of his ardour even through the lengthy mail to
"Our Firm," so that when the river route reopened, a double consignment
of dry goods took advantage of the water. The last penny, too, of the
fifty pounds had gone, through Mr. Mossop's agency, in handkerchiefs of
brand-new design, more heraldic, more patriotic than ever, and
guiltless of cards. Perhaps Alexander Blooker felt that, so far as he
was concerned, British civilisation was bringing no evil in its train.

And it was not. It was surprising, indeed, to see how the Distant
Depot had improved in tone. Franz Braun, who, deprived by the
difficulty of carriage of sufficient lager beer to satisfy him, had
taken to over-much whisky instead, now, greatly to the delight of his
"_verlobte_," satisfied his thirst on home-made ginger-pop, brewed by a
recipe of Alexander's aunt, while the old pastor gave in with smiling
acquiescence to the appropriation by Alexander Blooker of what might be
called "parochial work." In fact, there was some talk of building
another shanty as a parish hall; for the little man was distinctly
churchy, and liked things in order. A Temperance League and a Band of
Hope had, combined with an enlarged liver, made the liquor-store keeper
take leave home, and Alexander, having offered to run the business
until another man could come out, was now conducting it with a curious
mixture of conscience and commerce.

So the eve of the next yearly market came round, and Alexander, in a
fervour of Imperialism, actually climbed up the telegraph post which
stood in one corner of his compound, and nailed a pocket-handkerchief
to it, flag-wise.

"So!" called Franz Braun from over the way, half-jocularly,
half-vexedly, "the patrol will at you haf damages when he returns."

For that single wire which sped seawards from north to south was
patrolled at intervals by a staff of engineers from the former.

"He has paid his last visit for the cool season," said Alexander
knowingly; "so there it can stay if it likes for the next four months,
at any rate."

"I wish that to me came the same certainty of liking," growled Franz
Braun, "but, you see, the Herr papa ails, and the _verlobte_ wishes him
to the Homeland to take, and I would also go if I could."

A vague alarm showed on Alexander Blooker's face. "And leave me here
alone? I'm glad you can't."

The idea, however, stuck in his brain. Supposing he were left alone,
what would he do?

After he had arranged everything to his liking for the morrow, this
idea of perfect solitude kept him from sleep and he strolled out with a
pipe to quiet his nerves in the desert.

What would he do if he were left alone? A curious elation mixed with
his natural dread. He walked, and walked, scarcely thinking out the
question, only feeling it in that big heart of his. He had
instinctively followed the telegraph line himself so as to be sure of
not losing his way, but now he started at the sight of a solitary
figure before him, visible in the moonlight, advancing to him, and
keeping the same bee-line swiftly yet stumblingly, with a pause as for
a few seconds' rest at each post. It was someone who was ill, or very,
very tired.

A woman, a native woman! He could hear her voice now in her pauses.
Always the same words mumbled mechanically over and over again:

"Save me, Queen-of-the-handkerchief.... Save me...."

He knew enough of the language now to understand so much, and he
waited, watching her curiously.

Across the last gap she stumbled towards him, gave one surprised look
at him, and--with a vague effort at the same words as if he had been a
telegraph post--sank down in a dead faint.

She was quite a slip of a girl, and, after a time, she came to herself;
but she was so exhausted that it was past grey dawn when Alexander
Blooker managed to get her back to the telegraph post in the corner of
his compound. And to this she clung pertinaciously, much to his
annoyance, for he wanted to get her out of the way, and find who she
was, and what she wanted, before the native traders began to turn up.

His remonstrances, however, were in vain. Her only reply was a murmured
incoherent repetition of her first appeal:

"Save me! Queen-of-the-handkerchiefs."

And every time she said it, Alexander Blooker experienced a patriotic
thrill down his back. He felt that she must at all costs be saved--but
from what?

The dawn grew from grey to gold.

"_Gott in Himmel!_" laughed Franz Braun, coming down very early because
of something he had forgotten. "_Mein Alexander mit a Madchen! Ach!_
fie!"

"Stop your silly jaw and find out what she is wanting," cried Alexander
Blooker fiercely, "or help me to get her into the shanty before the
traders come."

"_Mein bruderlein_," replied Franz Braun solemnly, "when you have so long
as me been in savage places you will-not-to-redress-women's-wrongs-learn."

Alexander Blooker swelled visibly. "That sentiment is made in
Germany, sir. She has appealed to that"--he pointed to the flag
pocket--handkerchief on the telegraph post which was waving in the
breeze of dawn--"and, by George! she shall have protection!"

There was nothing more to be said, not even when some of the traders,
coming on the scene, recognised the girl as the daughter of a powerful
chief in the northern land, who would be certain to give trouble were
she harboured by the Distant Depot. It would be better to send her back
in their charge. How she had found her way so far was a mystery; she
must have followed the telegraph posts day by day, have slept in their
shadow night by night.

Some vague confused sense of the poetry of this--night after night
sleeping, all unconsciously as it were, under the flag of England--day
after day following the course of light to freedom, rose in Alexander's
throat, and half-choked him.

"She shall stay," he said. "Let her father come to fetch her; if he is
in the right, he shall have her."

"My dear sir," quavered old Pastor Schmidt, "he will not time for
explanation give. I was in a to-be-compared position once. I will not
be so again. I will take my daughter-ling away. I will go. There is no
good in staying to be massacred when pension has become due."

It was all to no purpose. Alexander Blooker stood firm. The utmost he
would do was to write a conciliatory letter for the traders to give on
their return to the girl's father, saying that his daughter had been
handed over to the charge of a suitable matron, and that he might have
her again if adequate explanations were tendered to Her Gracious
Britannic Majesty's representative at the Distant Depot. And here the
great temptation of his life came to Alexander Blooker. He would have
loved to sign himself "Consul C.M.G." No one would be the wiser. But
the sense of duty was strong within him, and he refrained.

This being so, Pastor Schmidt incontinently determined not to brave the
certainty, as he deemed it, of coming trouble. His Society in the West
was prepared for his possible return. The details of how the work could
be carried on by a native deacon during the six months before a new
pastor could arrive were all settled. Nothing but a half-conscious
feeling that to retire would be to sign his warrant of dismissal from
what had been to him his life, had kept him hitherto from decision.
Now, the river was falling fast; they must take their chance of escape
while they could get it.

And Franz Braun? After two days of moody helping to pack his
"_verlobte's_" belongings, he came to say, not without a certain
tremble in his voice:

"_Bruderlein_, I also go--so far anyhow--my firm said so much a month
ago--to-night thou wilt be alone."

There was not much time for Alexander Blooker to realise his position
until, as the cool of the night came on, he stood by the last little
landing-stage on the river, watching the Noah's-ark-boat as it punted
its way slowly through the network of sandbanks.

Behind him as he stood, flared the red glories of the setting sun; in
front of him, the long stretches of sand, the winding gleams of the
shrinking river were fast losing each other in the purple-blue shadows
of coming night. From the lessening speck of the boat as it drifted
downwards on the current came half-regretful, half-joyful farewells.
The native congregation, assembled in full force, sent after it
wailing outcries; but Alexander Blooker was silent, save for one brief
"Good-bye, Fraulein Anna! Good-bye, Pastor Schmidt! Good-bye, Franz
Braun!"

The sliding shadow of the boat had disappeared into the oncoming night
for his short-sighted eyes, long before the still savage congregation
lost it, but he stood staring on where it had been long after they had
gone home contentedly. Then he turned suddenly. The red had almost
faded from the sky. Only low down on the horizon lay a band of what
Ruskin held to be the highest light--pure vermilion--and against it he
could see the telegraph post, with a black speck that must be the
pocket-handkerchief of England flying at its peak.

He drew a long breath. For the first time in his life Alexander Blooker
felt that he was not a slave.


                          *   *   *   *   *


Six months after, the first _doongah_ of the season punted and sailed
up the river again. The Distant Depot was deserted; but there was no
sign of disorder in it. The English flag still flew from the telegraph
post. The Pastor's house, which Alexander Blooker had been implored to
occupy and keep in order, looked, save for the dust which always
gathered from the desert, as if he must have been there but a few days
before. The garden was ablaze with flowers. The clusters of native huts
had disappeared, and in their place neat streets of low wattle and dab
dwellings converged outwards from quite an imposing edifice with
"Church Hall" marked on it conspicuously. The liquor shop had
disappeared. Franz Braun's dry goods store was closed and the British
one removed to a portion of the central building.

The little Mission Chapel also was utterly changed. The seats removed
to make room for clean matting on which the native congregation could
squat. Everything western or of western symbolism swept away, and in
their place, ingeniously adapted to their present purpose, were things
held sacred by the natives. Here an English school had evidently had
its quarters, for copybooks, headed in a neat hand "If you take an
inch, you may as well take an ell," were found there. Also a few
chapters of the New Testament written out in the same handwriting.

The tiny cemetery behind the chapel, surrounded on three sides by
banana thickets, remained unaltered, save that, just under the east
window, three of the heraldic pocket-handkerchiefs were pegged to the
ground in an oblong.

What had happened?

The yearly market day brought vague, inconsistent rumours from the
mouths of many merchants.

Nothing was known for certain. The "Lord-of-Handkerchiefs" had
remained, of course. It was said that the chief had come for his
daughter. Nothing had happened. Only the Handkerchief-Lord had, as they
might see, built palaces.

He was a Great Chief. The people simply would not live without him when
he died. So, at least, they had said as they came through the villages
beyond the desert on their way north. How long ago? Ah! not long; they
were afraid, see you, of the new gentlemen. They preferred to begin
afresh elsewhere. That would doubtless be his grave at the back of the
chapel. He was a great loss to the country. No one gave handkerchiefs
away as he did.

So the Distant Depot had to go on its way without further details. Only
the traces of Alexander Blooker's short rule remained, and the new
inhabitants who soon gathered to fill the trim walls and dab houses
benefited by them.

One day, however, when almost a year had gone by, the new pastor found
that the oblong of handkerchiefs in the cemetery, instead of being worn
and faded by sun and rain was, apparently, brand new.

Someone must have renewed it in the night. And on the top of it,
written out in wobbly round hand, was the last copy Alexander Blooker
had set:

"If you take an inch you may as well take an ell."

From which the Distant Depot inferred that it was his death-day.




                      THE REGENERATION OF DAISY
                                 BELL


"It is quite out of the question," said the Adjutant, severely. "Major
Primmer has formerly complained, and the C.O. has desired me to--to--to
see that the nuisance is abated----"

So far, regimental discipline kept the Adjutant's risible muscles under
control; then he smiled, for he was more human than adjutants are wont
to be in orderly room. "And, upon my soul, youngster," he went on,
picking up a letter which lay beside him, "it is a bit hard on Primmer.
I can imagine his disgust! H'm, h'm--'_have to report_'--Ah! here--'_As
usual, I woke with the entry of my body-servant bringing my early tea.
As usual, also, I lay for a few moments to collect my thoughts; but
when I turned to pour out the beverage_'--good old Primmer--'_my
disgust was great to find Lieutenant Graham's so-called tame monkey--I
may interpolate that it is a specimen of the Presbytis schistaceus, a
bold and predatory tribe, and not the Presbytis entellus, a much milder
race_'--good old Primmer again; he's nothing if not exact--'_in full
possession of my tea-table. The brute had consumed all the toast, save
one crust, which I regret to say it threw at me when I attempted
remonstrance_.'"

We both laughed.

"Can't you see Major Primmer, V.C., sitting up in bed with his
eye-glasses on, in a mortal funk," I began, trying to brazen it out.
But official decorum had resumed its sway over the Adjutant, and he
read on:

"'_It then proceeded, with an accuracy which I cannot believe to be
entirely self-taught_'--H'm, Graham, that is serious; remember he is
your superior officer--'_to imitate closely my method of pouring out
tea. This is peculiar, as I invariably put the milk in first. My
efforts at checking the lawless brute were again quite unavailing; and
resulted only in the deliberate emptying of the scalding hot tea over
my nether garments_.'"

"Why couldn't he say his pyjamas," I groaned, captiously; for I
recognised that things had gone a bit too far. I had had no idea Jennie
had such a fund of humour.

But once more official decorum failed to respond.

"'_This, I may add, it did again and again, until the teapot was
exhausted. It then pouched the whole contents of the sugar-basin, drank
the milk, and smeared its head with the butter. The latter action
appeared to arouse reminiscence. It repaired to my dressing-table,
brushed its hair with my brushes, used my pommade hongroise, and then
proceeding to the wash-hand-stand, nefariously laid hold of my
tooth-brush. This, however, was too much. I rose. At the same moment my
body-servant providently appeared with my hot water, and the brute,
jabbering at me in unseemly fashion, made for the window, which I
always keep open winter and summer. I have already requested Lieutenant
Graham to remove this savage animal; and now have no option_ ...'"

The Adjutant laid down the letter. "It's hard on Primmer," he said,
with almost superhuman solemnity; "the tooth-brush incident was----" he
resumed speech after a brief pause, "and he is a good sort is old
Primmer."

I was perfectly aware of the fact. Only the week before, when we were
out in the jungle, he had dosed me with quinine and taken my
temperature every two hours during an attack of fever and ague.

So Jennie the monkey must give way; but what the deuce was I to do with
her? I did not want to have to shoot her.

"Give her to Tootsie," suggested the Adjutant, sympathetically; "I
heard her say not long ago she would give anything for a monkey."

It was a brilliant idea. Miss d'Aguilar, familiarly known as Tootsie,
performed the arduous duties of spinster to our little frontier
station; so that afternoon, before going on duty, I rode round by "The
Forest," so called, I presume, because there was not a bit of
vegetation larger than a caper bush between it and the Beluchistan
Hills.

I found the young lady and her mother--a frankly black-and-tan lady who
looked as if she would have been more comfortable with a veil to roll
round her fat person--engaged, after their wont, in entertaining some
of the junior subalterns at tea. As I entered, Tootsie--a sparkling
brunette with gloriously startling Titian brown hair, due to cunning
applications of henna dye (there were traces of it on Mamma's
hands)--was, in a high-pitched staccato voice, recounting with arch
gaiety, her impressions of Calcutta, whence she had but lately
returned. "Yes! I do declare the men are just sillies. Why! do not
believe me, but I asked a young fellow in a Europe shop to bring me
flesh-coloured stockings, and he brought me tan! Was he not a silly
boy?"

The pause which inevitably followed this anecdote seemed a fitting
opportunity for somewhat sentimentally offering Jennie. Had I offered a
bomb the effect could not have been more disastrous. Miss grew crimson;
Mamma, purple and plethoric, wondered how any gentleman could keep such
a nasty brute, still less offer it as a fit companion to an innocent
young girl.

Evidently Jennie had again got herself disliked; how, the junior sub.
told me succinctly as we rode home.

"You see, Tootsie dyes her hair--and henna's a bit of a lengthy
business. They don't mind me, I'm only a boy; but she has to have it
plastered over her head for hours. So she has a big hat with a false
bun and fringe for these occasions. And Jennie got hold of it somehow
last week. I happened to be there; and, by George, I chevied the beast
half over cantonments before she would give it up--she's a regular
devil."

I sighed. Evidently the culprit must be shot. She had no friends.

As I came up to the guardroom, however, I heard a song being lilted out
by a tenor voice into the hot dusty air. The refrain of London sounded
odd here in the desert on the confines of civilisation:


      "Dy'sy, Dy'sy, give me yer answer dew,
       I'm half cry'sy, all for the love o' yew."


"Yes, sir," reported the sergeant. "It's Dy'sy, sure enough. He's in
agin; more often in nor out."

"What for?" I asked, a trifle regretfully, for the man, nicknamed by
his comrades Dy'sy from his habit of perpetually warbling that
aggravating ditty, was rather a favourite of mine. He was a perfectly
reckless rolling stone, a bad shilling of about five-and-thirty, who
from the way he had, when not on his guard, of assimilating drill, must
have been through it several times. But over his past he drew a veil;
and, indeed, his present was sufficient for character. He had come
out with a draft in the cold weather, and already his evil influence
with the recruits was notorious. Yet I liked the fellow; he was a
first-class light-weight bruiser, out and away the best in the
regiment. I had taken lessons of his, and his devil-may-care defiance
had been attractive.

"Same as before, sir," replied the sergeant. "Shindy in Number Three.
'Tain't no manner o' use shiftin' 'is room. He'd purwurt a Sunday
School."

Solid truth in every word! Yet the light blue eyes which met mine had a
twinkle in them that softened my heart.

"If you are such a cursed fool," I said, as sternly as I could, "you'll
come to grief."

His face took on sublime innocence. "Beg pardin, sir; but it ralely
ain't fair w'en a party is trying to do 'is dooty to 'is parsters an'
marsters. Them young chaps was makin' fun hover your monkey usin' the
major's py-jammas has a slopper; an' I only tole 'm it was kind o'
disrespekful like, as she meant it hall in k'yindness, an' bid 'm hold
their jaw. That's how the tin dishes got hinjured, for," he added, with
great dignity, "I won't 'ave no slanderin' o' dumb animals as can't
speak up for thesselves."

A gleam of hope shot through me. "You're fond of animals, are you?" I
asked.

For once candid confidence came to him. "Well! I don' know, sir," he
replied, "but 'twas the loss o' a dorg as fust set me wrong." He gave a
glance towards the sergeant, who was discreetly retiring, and then went
on. "I was but a young chap, just gone twenty, and the dorg was a bull
tarrier, sir, as good as they make 'm. S'yme n'yme as your monkey,
sir--Jennie. We was chums. Then I got a gel, one o' the yaller-haired
kind, sir, an' I was a fool about her, as young chaps is apt ter be.
Well, sir, I 'adn't bin just steddy--no real 'arm, you know, but sort
o' light like. But I settles down an' begins ter screw against gettin'
married. The yaller-haired gel was livin' with me, sir, so as to save
time like, but we was sure to get married in church an' go hoff
emigrating so soon as I'd got the 'oof. An' Jennie was to go, too, for
she an' me was chums. Well, sir, there was a big, black chap, coster he
was, I licked him more nor once for 'angin' round; but there! females
are built that way. So it 'appened when I come 'ome one hevening that I
found 'er gone, an' the 'oof too. An' Jennie----" he drew his hand
slowly over his mouth--"Jennie had died game, sir. She 'ad a bit of the
big black brute's corduroys betwixt 'er teeth, but 'e'd bashed 'er 'ead
open with 'is boot."

There was silence. Then he went on with a reckless laugh, "'Tweren't
the gel, sir; there's plenty o' them ter be got, yaller hair an' all.
But Jennie an' me had been chums."

Five minutes later the monkey had changed masters. To oblige me and
save Jennie from being shot Dy'sy Bell had promised to take care of
her.

"I'u'd rather 'ave no money, sir," he said, when he appeared to fetch
her away and I offered him something towards her keep, "'twould only go
to the canteen, and if I get into trouble, oo'd look after 'er?"

'"Er," I may mention, had just bitten his finger through to the bone,
an action which he dismissed with the remark that "females was built
that way."

Three days later, as I rode past Number Three barrack, I saw Jennie
cracking nuts on a brand-new perch. Dy'sy, it now appeared, was quite a
smart carpenter, and had made it himself in the workshop. Three days
after that again, the perch was embellished by a brass chain, and Dy'sy
admitted shamefacedly that he had once been in a foundry. So time
passed on, until it occurred to me that Dy'sy had ceased to come into
prominence before me as company officer, and I questioned the sergeant
concerning him.

The official did not move a muscle. "Number Three's has quiet has a
orphin asylum now, sir. As I lies in my bunk I don't 'ear no whisper.
But it was Bedlam broke loose the fust night after Jennie come, sir. I
lay low, seeing as there never was no use in tryin' to get at the
bottom o' that sort o' row in the dark, sir. An' next morning 'arf the
room complained of 'avin' a hunbaptised brute put to bed with 'em. The
monkey slep' with Dy'sy, sir, so I spoke to 'im, an' told 'im I
c'u'dn't 'ave no more complaints, an' he replied, quite civil-like, as
there sh'u'dn't be none. An' there wasn't; but 'arf the men 'ad black
eyes that week, sir, though 'ow they came by 'm they didn't say."

I did not enquire. It was sufficient for me that Number Three barrack
was rapidly becoming regenerate. As I passed one day I heard a voice
say, "Now, boys! I won't 'ave no cuss words; they ain't fit for a lydy
to hear."

"You don't go so often to the canteen as you used to, Bell," I said to
him one day when I found him sitting alone in the verandah nursing
Jennie, who jibbered at me.

"Ain't got the money, sir," he replied cheerfully. "_Neringis_ and
sich--like is a horful price in this Gordforsaken spot, an' Jennie's
been a bit ailin'; won't eat nothing else."

"Well, you'll be getting your stripes soon, I expect, if you go on as
you are doing," I remarked.

He flushed up. "I 'opes so, sir," he said modestly. "Jennie 'u'd set
store by a striped sleeve, females being built that way."

My prophecy proved correct. Dy'sy was made a corporal, and before long,
in the Border campaign which the cold weather brought us, found himself
a sergeant, and so eventually in charge of a telegraph station on the
top of one of the passes to our rear.

It was an important post to keep open, since on the integrity of the
wire through a mile or so of singularly difficult country hung the
certainty of speedy relief, should any kind of disaster overtake our
little force, which was intimidating the tribes in the valleys beyond.

And disaster did overtake it, chiefly by reason of a terrific snowstorm
which swept over it early in February--a snowstorm which paralysed
progress, and made all thoughts turn to the probability of that mile of
telegraph wire remaining intact.

No supplies could, of course, be sent up, so the men in the station
must either starve or return, if, indeed, they had not been overwhelmed
already. The latter seemed the most likely, since, though the through
wire remained open, not a signal came from the station.

"An avalanche most likely," said the Adjutant. "The station was built,
I always said, in the wrong place. What luck the wire isn't damaged as
yet. It won't be long before it is, I'm afraid."

It was, however, still going strong when four men, one badly
frost-bitten, made their way into camp. They had started five, they
said, by Sergeant Bell's orders, after they had with difficulty
extricated themselves from the ruins of the house, which had been
completely smashed up by a tremendous avalanche. It was impossible,
Dy'sy had said, to keep the post and six men also, so he had given them
what supplies he could spare--the store was luckily uninjured--and
bidden them take their best chance of safety at once.

As for his, it seemed but slender, as I felt when, a fortnight later,
we managed to cut our way through the drifts that lay round the hollow
where the station had stood. Across this hollow the through wire still
stretched, and quite recently someone had evidently been at work upon
it, for tools lay on fresh frosted snow. But all was still as the dead,
quiet as the grave. We found Dy'sy lying on his face in the store many
feet below the snow surface. The steps cut down to it were worn with
the passing of his feet, but he did not move when we bent over him;
something, however, cuddled close in his arms, woke and jibbered at us
angrily. It was Jennie, dressed for warmth in every rag of blanketing
available. She was as fat as a pig, and the charcoal embers in the tin
can hung round her neck were not yet quite cold. But Dy'sy was skin and
bone; yet the Irish doctor, as he bent hastily to examine him, said,
cheerfully: "Annyhow, his love for the baste may have saved his life;
she's kept his heart warm whatever."

And she had.

Six weeks afterwards I sat beside him in hospital. He showed thin and
gaunt still in his grey flannel dressing-gown, and two fingers were
missing on his left hand.

"Well!" I said, "so they've given you the D.S.M., and a special pension
if you want to go."

He smiled brilliantly.

"Don't want to, sir. Jennie she likes the H'army; females is built that
way. And as for t'other, 'twas really Jennie done it. I couldn't take
her through the snow--she'd 'a' died for sure. An' I couldn't leave
her, so there wasn't no choice."




                         A SONG WITHOUT WORDS


It was in the club that the telegram came, and as I sat watching my
partner make pie of one of the best bridge hands ever ruined, I read it
over once or twice, and, finally, when our adversaries had run out,
handed it over to the culprit as a means of turning my wrath to another
subject.

"Transferred!" he commented, calmly. "H'm! We shall have to get
Beveridge to join our game instead!" (My self-pity flew for a moment
to poor Beveridge, and I wondered what sort of a temper he had.)
"Still, it isn't a bad place, though rather out of the way. Splendid
buck-shooting--only, of course, this isn't the time. And a very decent
house." Here he giggled. "Well, decent isn't, perhaps, the word to use,
is it? And, by Jove, I'm sorry for you. There will be a devil of a mess
to set right, I expect; and, anyhow, it isn't pleasant to step into
another fellow's shoes after that sort of thing."

I acquiesced. "That sort of thing" was, briefly, the suicide of a
fellow civil servant, whom I had known vaguely as the most brilliant
man in my year.

A tall, handsome, light-hearted fellow, full of life, full of
everything, apparently, likely to make him go up; instead of which he
had gone down steadily--so steadily that at last even a Government
which prides itself on ignoring breaches of social law, had been driven
into first banishing him to the charge of a solitary jungle district,
where there was no world to be scandalised, and then with warning him
that he must either pull up or send in his papers.

He chose the latter course decisively, sending in his checks to another
tribunal.

"He wasn't a bad sort when he first came out," continued my partner;
"had, in fact, distinct glimmerings of sense, and to the last he
wasn't, so to speak, a bad officer. But the wine and the women--well,
there you are--and--make the best of it."

This last might have been meant for the nice hand which he displayed.
We had cut for partners again, with the only result of shifting the
deal. I took it that way, anyhow, and said no more.

There was, in fact, nothing to be said, so when I got home, I told the
bearer of my transfer, and, sitting down, wrote an effusively-cheerful
letter to my wife, who was in the hills with the babies, enlarging on
the manifold advantages of my transfer, and making much of the fact
that, though it brought no extra pay, it was, in a measure, promotion.

Then I smoked a pipe, feeling virtuous, for those two estimable
creatures--my bearer and my wife--invariably do my duty for me. In
fact, I am the happiest man in existence. I have told my wife so a
hundred times, and she believes it firmly. The faculty, by the way,
which good women have of believing things that ought to be true, is
occasionally appalling, but is always immensely convenient to their
husbands.

I always wrote her cheerful letters, and in return I used to get
delightful daily budgets, giving me all the wonderful ways and works of
the chicks, and imploring me to let her know regularly what the cook
gave me for dinner, and if I ate it. Also if I were morally sure that
the water was boiling for my tea every afternoon, as, if I was not, she
would infallibly hand the babies over to hirelings, and come down to
her ill-used hubby.

Such delightful, tender, womanly budgets were her replies that I swear
and declare that, had I been asked to read them aloud, a lump in my
throat would have interfered with my elocution.

Yet I swear and declare, also, that I would far rather the kettle were
not boiling than that any one I cared for should fuss over it and a
charcoal brazier on a hot verandah on a sweltering August day. But,
then, as my wife is always telling me, I have no real sense of duty.

I wrote her, therefore, as cheerfully as I could, telling her, which
was true, that solitude would be better than bad bridge. Also that it
really was a move nearer to her, since, in case of emergency, I could
cut across country by dhoolie to the foot of the hills. Finally, I
enlarged on the fact that my successor would take over our house as it
stood until her return, so that she need not fuss about moving
anything, as I should do well in my new house, which was to remain as
it was until my predecessor's unfortunate affairs had gone through the
Administrator-General's office--a business, as a rule, of months.

I even mentioned the existence of a Bechstein grand piano, with a hint
that if I could get rid of our cottage, I might buy it when the sale
came on--an additional craftiness, since my wife loves to think I am
allowed to have my own way in everything. It makes her more certain
that we have won the Dunmow flitch of bacon--which we undoubtedly have.

Having done my best to set her wifely anxiety at rest, I advanced fifty
rupees to my bearer.

In consequence of which we started next day for my new district, bag
and baggage. Though the most part of the journey was by train, the
bearer insisted on buckling a big sword he had picked up somewhere
round his capacious middle. It decidedly had an effect on the railway
coolies.

About three a.m. we turned out at a roadside station, where, thanks to
that fifty rupees, a dak gharri was waiting to convey me the remaining
twenty miles. I was very sleepy, and as I tumbled into my new
conveyance I got a vague impression of a howling wilderness of sand,
tufted with tiger grass, desolate utterly; so falling asleep again, and
not waking until, in the darkness, I tumbled out--this time into a
large empty room, with a tiny camp bed set in its midst--I carried on,
as it were, the impression of desert surrounding me. But not for long.
The next day would, I suspected, be a trifle trying, since my
unfortunate predecessor's methods of business would scarcely be
conducive to a mechanical taking over charge of his office. So I was
soon asleep, without even realising that probably I was sleeping where
he had lain dead but a day or two before.

When I opened my eyes next morning I felt a curious content and
surprise. The room was bare in the extreme. The camp bed on which I
lay, a deck chair, the cover of a travelling chest-of-drawers doing
duty as a wardrobe, the top of a travelling bath doing ditto as a
table, a bit of looking-glass hung above it by a string--these were its
furniture. The furniture of the light-hearted boy who had come out in
the same year as I had. With an odd, guilty remorse, I remembered that
I had long since exchanged these simple satisfactions of youth for more
luxurious methods. An unpaid bill of Maple's, indeed, flashed to my
mind, as, looking round the walls, which were hung with full-sized
photographs and copies of the great masters, I realised that my
predecessor had spent his spare cash in a different fashion to what I
had.

Very different, indeed. My remorse vanished in contempt, as, opening
one of the drawers, a very strong scent of sandal wood made itself
perceptible, and in one corner I saw a trumpery piece of native
jewellery.

A certain anger took possession of me then, as I looked up into the
eyes of the Sistine Madonna, which hung in a conspicuous place, and I
felt virtuous in realising that, after all, it was a natural refinement
and pure love of order and beauty which lay at the bottom of our
civilised cult of comfortableness.

So thinking, I passed out on to the verandah, still with last night's
impression on me that I was in a howling desert.

What I saw, therefore, gave me a shock. For here was a garden such as I
had never seen. Neither English nor Indian, yet reminiscent of both in
its wide sweeps of well-kept lawns, its dense thickets of flowering
shrubs, both, at this break in the rainy season, looking their best. It
took me a moment, however, to realise what it was which gave this
garden its curious distinction from other gardens. There was no path in
it. Though where I stood must once have been the front door, since a
huge pillared porch jutted beyond the verandah, the grass swept right
up to the very house. It had a curious untrodden look. A huge-leaved,
waxen-flowered Beaumontia almost covered the porch with its cold, white
scentless blossoms, and between the pillars Eucharis lilies rose above
a marvellous mass of maidenhair.

The delicate greenery, the chill whiteness made me think involuntarily
of the newly dead, and had I had on my hat I felt as if I should have
removed it.

As it was, I stepped, with a slight shiver, beyond the porch into the
sunlight.

The chilliness was gone in a moment, though the cloistered air
remained, due to the great tamarind trees, which on all sides shut out
the world, shut in the flowers. The birds, too. I never saw so many. A
golden oriole was challenging the sun with its full-throated call from
the bronze rain-shoots of the huge banyan tree, which filled up one
corner, and there were at least a dozen ruby-throated humming-birds
among the hibiscus flowers--those strangely mutable flowers, white in
the dawn, which blush into a crimson death before sunset.

The banyan tree, promising a well in its shade, and the well promising
the possibility of a gardener whom I could question--for I was beset by
curiosity--I strolled over to it, and found what I wanted--a very old,
wizened man, pretending to weed an offensive patch of yellow African
marigolds, which was carefully hidden away behind a henna hedge.

"Yes!" he replied, with the tearless regret one often hears in native
voices, the dead Huzoor had been very fond of his garden--in a way.
(Here the regret became personal and aggrieved.) He had never sent for
European seeds, so, of course, it had been impossible even for the most
skilful of malas to make it into a real garden. But if the new Huzoor
would employ this slave--who had many certificates--here the usual
bundle was drawn out from some mysterious hiding-place--mysterious
because he was more than half-naked--he would make proper paths and
"rippin' beds," and set them ablaze with "floccus" and "soot-ullians"
and "gerabians and----"

He was beginning to reel off a seedsman's catalogue when I pulled him
up by pointing to the marigolds. He pursed up his lips in pious horror.
Oh, no, there would be no more "gooljafari" or "genda" grown in that
garden. They had been for the other folk, who, of course, would no
longer---- The mixture of cunning question and scandalised propriety on
the old humbug's face made me mentally resolve that he should "no
longer" either. In fact, before my wife and the bairns came down I must
have the whole place cleared and fumigated. But the garden? No, it must
not be touched.

I had my breakfast in a huge dark, central room, which was absolutely
bare save for a ricketty table and two chairs. There were not even any
photographs on the walls. It was so dark that they could not have been
seen.

"They found the Huzoor lying there, at the door," said my bearer
calmly, after apologising profusely for an oversight in the matter of
marmalade, which, he trusted, might be forgotten, and not reported to
the memsahib. "He had been dead a long time, for he had paid off all
the servants and sent away the other people and the children on the
evening before, saying he was going on a journey. His bearer waited for
him at the station with his baggage, only he never came, nor his horse,
either.

"It was the office which found him, when it came for signature of
papers next day, and there was nothing disturbed, only the Huzoor lying
where they could see him easily from the front door, and the horse
comfortable in its stall, with plenty of grass. He was always
thoughtful to the poor was the sahib, and never gave trouble to others.
At least, so his servants say--but what can they know--poor, mean
creatures, who do not even know when a kettle boils!"

I let him talk, for somehow I did not wish to think. In much the same
mood I went doggedly through my day's work in taking over charge and
reducing chaos to order--or, rather, conventional order, for through
all the disgraceful neglect of ordinary routine ran the unmistakable
thread of one man's control, and of a strong man at that, even in its
favouritism, its flagrant derelictions from the ordinary conception of
a magistrate's duty.

As I got into my dogcart to come home, an orderly came forward, with a
doubtful air, carrying a small bag, such as natives use as a purse.

"It was the custom," he began; but by this time I felt that I must
return to a right judgment of things, so I purposely lost my temper,
and let it be known that all old customs were to be abolished. "It was
only the pennies for the children on Fridays," stuttered the orderly.
"The Huzoor used always to give them----"

I drove off, thinking that, perhaps, my predecessor might have been
wise in choosing a higher tribunal.

My bearer, however, who, as usual, stood in the verandah to receive my
hat, had no doubts in the totality of his blame. He was full of
virtuous activities. Order, in some measure, had been restored. Certain
screens of grass, which had been removed against a time when the mem
might find them useful in the poultry yard, and the outhouses having
been finally cleared--by the aid of the police--of various pensioners
and idle folk, who wept profusely, had been duly distributed among the
servants, he himself having taken one with a women's enclosure, which
would be the cause of great comfort.

I bid him take what he liked, and for the first time went into the
drawing-room, where he said my tea awaited me.

I shall never forget my first look at that room, with its five
straight, undraped windows, set in a row round one slightly curved
wall. The others bare, save for the shadows, which were fast creeping
to obliterate even the bareness. The windows were mere oblongs of dim
light, stretching up into the lofty roof, and that shadow looming in
one shadowy corner, across a vast expanse of shadowy matting, must be
the Bechstein piano. I made a move towards it, and stumbled against my
own tea-table, a highly ornate, sham Oriental, carved thing, which the
bearer, by my wife's orders, carried about with him religiously, and at
the same time the bearer himself entered with the reading lamp, without
which, so I am told, I cannot exist.

I gave up the Bechstein, therefore, for a time, and had caviare
sandwiches with my tea instead.

I do not know why--my wife would have said because the water was not
boiling--but I did not enjoy my tea. The pity of all things in this
incomprehensible world struck me with a vague anger. I sat wondering
if, after all, a higher tribunal----

Good heavens! What was that? Someone was playing on the Bechstein. I
did not turn. I sat staring at those five solemn oblongs of the
glimmering windows, showing lighter and lighter as the shadows deepened
in the big bare room.

It was Walther's song out of "Tannhauser"--the song of divine love....

The bearer said I was asleep when he came to tell me it was time to
dress for dinner. Perhaps I was, for sound sleep brings perfect peace
and rest, and that had come to me with the music which had come out of
the windows.

I have a dim recollection that the khansaman apologised because the
soup was not clear, and that the bearer explained that a wire mattress
had not arrived owing to the breaking down of a bullock cart. But I
know that I sat up till all hours of the night in the dark, hoping to
hear the Bechstein again, but it was silent as the grave.

Perhaps at dusk I might hear it once more. I raced off to the office
early, in order to be home in time, and was almost glad of a few
flagrant derelictions of duty cropping up to keep my moral nature from
too much sympathy.

Yet even so, as I drove home, I put my hand in my pocket and drew out a
handful of coppers for a group of children I passed on the road. I
could not help it when I remembered a certain paper I had sent up to
the Administrator-General that day, showing the way in which a certain
sinner had spent his last pay.

"Tea is ready in the drawing-room," said the bearer; and even in my
preoccupation I thought there was something odd in his voice.

But a look into the big bare room was sufficient. I shouldn't have
known it, women have such a way of altering the whole character of a
house by a yellow silk bow. She had taken the little camp bed and made
a couch out of it with cushions and phulkarees. The five fateful
windows, like the five senses looking out on the garden of the soul,
were tucked and festooned, and through one of them came the familiar
sound of a pair of bellows, and then a still more familiar exclamation:

"There! That's really boiling at last."

The next instant my wife was in my arms, tearful, tender, triumphant.

Cheerful letters were all very well, but she knew; so she had just left
the babies in charge of some super-excellent creature, and run away
down to see I was really comfortable.

"And, after all," she said, nodding her head as she poured out the tea,
"it is as well I did come, for really there seems to be nothing in the
house except the Bechstein."

I looked over to it dully, and noticed that it was now ornamented by my
photograph in a filigree frame.

"Yes," I said--I hope I kept some of the regret out of my voice--"only
the Bechstein."

And as we sat and talked of the children, and our own happiness, and
the seeds we were going to sow in the garden, the five windows grew
lighter as the shadows deepened.

But the spirit of the room was silent.




                             SEGREGATION


"I've got the plague, sir, upon my sam, I 'ave. I'll show yer the spot,
sir, same as they 'ad in 1666 w'en the Tower o' London was burnt down,
an' Sir Christopher Wren built St. Paul's--so 'elp me Gawd."

The speaker was a plausible loafer of the usual type. He was dressed in
white, or what had once been white raiment. A gilt button or two hung
round the coat; mute testimony to its having once belonged to a man who
did some work of some kind for the Government. He was not a Eurasian,
that you could see by the line of white on his forehead above the tan,
as he stood apologetically in the court room holding his helmet before
him with both hands as if he meant to offer it up as a bribe. It was
certainly the most valuable thing about him, for it had a wadded
quilted cover and looked, what the rest of him did not--respectable.

"The plague!" echoed the magistrate (I am the magistrate). "Nonsense,
man! you're drunk--that's what's the matter with you. Inspector, remove
that man: put him into the lock-up if he gives trouble."

The inspector approached, but the loafer stood his ground, not without
quiet dignity; the dignity that comes to some people in the first stage
of intoxication. "Excuse of me, sir," he said, "but I ain't going to
make myself a noosance to nobody. That's w'y I came 'ere. That's w'y I
spent my last bloomin' _hart hanner_ (eight annas) in takin' a _ticca
ghari_ (hired carriage) to the 'orspitals, every one of 'em, so as
there might be no infections. Bless your 'art, I don't want to do no
'arm to anyone. I wants to be seggergated, that's all, afore I does
any."

The magistrate smiled faintly: there was something likeable in the
man's face.

"So you've been to the hospitals, have you? What did the doctors say!"

"Same as you, sir," he replied cheerfully, "as I was drunk; but if I
am, Job Charnock--that's me, sir--never got real on afore with one
glass o' _harrack_--an' beastly bad stuff it was, too--smelt like a
dead dorg an' tasted like a tannery."

Perhaps the name, Job Charnock, awoke memories of the founder of
Calcutta, who, before his fortunes were made, must have been more or
less of a friendless wanderer in an eastern land; perhaps it was
because the magistrate was waiting for a file to be brought from the
record office; but the spirit of cross-examination entered into him.
"One glass of arrak--is that all you've had?"

The loafer paused, an expression of the utmost candour came to his
face. "All I've 'ad to-day, sir, s'elp me, 'cos I 'adn't a pice more
left ter buy a bit o' food with. Only the _hart hanner_ I spent
Christian-like on a _ticca ghari_ ter try an' get seggergated afore it
was too late. An' they said I was drunk!"

The mournful cadence of his voice was irresistible.

"Chaprassi, take that man to the serai, and tell the _darogah_ to give
him some breakfast. I'll pay for it. Now you go quietly, my man, and
sleep it off. You'll have got rid of the plague by morning."

The file had come in from the record office, I was immersed in the
endless, hopeless attempt to drag truth from the bottom of the well in
a land suit; so I thought no more of Job Charnock until I met the civil
surgeon at tennis in the evening.

"Yes," he replied to my query, "Segregation was on his rounds again
this morning. You're new, but he is a regular institution here. He gets
the funks on board, generally about a month after a bout, and comes to
every one of us in turn to be segregated. I think he is a bit looney on
the plague--has a real _phoby_ about it. He'll get it, I expect, some
day, from sheer fright--but there's none about at present."

The something likeable in the man's face, however, returned to memory
with the obvious fact that he had appeared chiefly concerned to "do no
'arm to anyone." So the next morning, having ten minutes to spare on my
way from the city, I called in at the _serai_. It was like all other
_serais_: a dreary cloistered square, deserted absolutely between five
a.m. until eight p.m.; that is to say, the hours during which
travellers are on the road. Now, close on nine o'clock, only the muck
of last night's bivouac remained. A sweeper, with a broom and a basket,
was busy removing some of the more salient rubbishes. Otherwise all was
still as the grave. But, seated on a rush stool in one of the little
octagonal turret rooms, which, built on either side of the gateway, are
reserved for European wayfarers, I found Job Charnock. He had evidently
paid a visit to the well, for he looked cleaner and was distinctly
sober, but he was more voluble than ever.

"I give 'arf the breakfast you stood me away to the sweeper, sir," he
said, "an' 'e brought me some _omum_ water as cured me in a jiffy.
That's all I was wantin', sir, an' none o' them doctors could spare me
'arf a pint. It seems strange, don't it, sir? And ter think the 'arm as
I might do going about with the plague spot under my harm, as it's all
writ truthful in that book by Mr. 'Arrison Hainsworth, Esquire. 'Ave
you read it, sir?" he asked blandly.

I assured him I had, told him he was a fool, advised him to go north to
the new railway to find work, gave him five rupees to find his way
there. It was indiscreet and quite contrary to the rules of the Charity
Organisation Society, but as I have said, something in the man's face
appealed to me.

Thereafter he passed from my memory under the usual pressure of work
and worry which is the lot of an Indian official.

It was in the middle of the hot weather, when the civil surgeon rushed
into me at my office with a telegram in his hand.

"Will you arrange with Spiller for my work," he said excitedly, "I must
be off at once. Read that--you see, I gave the assistant surgeon at the
Bimariwallah dispensary a few days' leave off my own bat, and there's
only a dresser in charge; so there will be the devil of a row if
anything goes wrong."

The telegram read as follows: "Outbreaks of much plague amongst
European gentlemen here. Please arrange for supplies of sufficient
brandy."

"But there are no Europeans at Bimariwallah," I began.

"I know that," broke in the doctor, "and, of course, brandy isn't the
right treatment; but that's just where it is. The fool of a dresser
doesn't know English, doesn't know anything, so I'm bound to go."

"Well, if you'll curb your impatience for two hours, till I've finished
this case, I'll motor you so far down the Trunk road, and _dak_ you on.
I have an Executive Municipal Council to-morrow morning at Raipur, and
it's all on the way."

There had been a shower of rain--an advance scout of the coming monsoon
to spy out the dryness of the land--so our spin of thirty miles down
the road was pleasant enough, though the great wains of corn and straw
that still defy the network of railways which has immeshed India, had
possession of a large portion of the highway. But, to my mind, there is
always something "satisfactory" in finding that no amount of
preliminary hooting changes the path of the slow-moving wheels, and
that, in the end, even a Siddeley-Wolsey car must either hold up until
comprehension comes to the carter who moves as slowly as the wheels, or
else pass by on a side-walking. It seems to presage safety; to give
assurance that India will not, after all, run off the rails.

The buggy and horse were waiting at the cross roads, and it only needed
a _detour_ of three miles to drop the doctor at the very door of the
dispensary.

Feeling some curiosity as to what was really the matter, I withstood
his prayer to be set down and allowed to make his way on foot. I was
glad I did; for the first glimpse I had of the dispensary compound
assured me that something very unusual was taking place. To begin with,
a long low reed shed, such as is used in cholera epidemics, had been
hastily run up on the opposite side of the road, and in it were to be
seen patients lying in their beds or out of them. Posts, each carrying
a yellow streamer, were set up every ten yards around the compound
itself, and at each gate stood a village watchman complete with speared
staff and bells.

As we drove up, the dresser--pallid of face, but full of a vast
importance--rushed out from a small hut which had been erected inside.

"Many, many thanks to Supreme Almighty," he ejaculated; then added,
with distinct complacency, "you will find all things necessarily in
order, sir. Segregationalism is being much carried out. Patient having
passed through p--neumonic deliriums is now comatic and in _articulo
mortis_."

I followed the doctor, who looked, as well he might, completely
bewildered.

The dispensary was cleared out: saucers of disinfectants positively
littered the ground. White sheets saturated with the same hung at every
door; the smell of them stank in the nostrils, and, as I followed, a
dank disagreeable wet flap from one of them on my cheek made me shiver;
but the sight which met my eyes in the central room set me literally
shaking with laughter. It was so inexpressibly comic.

Propped high on pillows, his face placid, composed, lay Job Charnock,
snoring contentedly, while an empty brandy bottle beside him on the bed
showed one cause at least of his somnolence. There he lay, peaceful as
a baby, while the doctor, frowning at my inopportune laughter, turned
angrily to the dresser.

"You cursed fool! The man's drunk. What the deuce do you mean by being
such an ass." Then the comic side of the situation took him also, and
he joined me in my merriment.

"By Jove," he chortled, "Segregation has done it this time."

There was no use attempting to awaken him for the moment, so the doctor
turned on the dresser again. How had it come about? How had he allowed
himself to be so imposed upon?

It was quite simple, even when clothed in the babu's best "middel-fail"
English.

Segregation had come, had seen, had conquered. He had declared himself
sick of the plague, and defied the dresser to deny it. He had thereupon
taken possession of the dispensary, ordered the erection of the
temporary sheds by enforced labour, cleared out the patients, used up
all the disinfectants, and had then, but not till then, taken to his
bed and drunk all the brandy! So "cometic symptoms supervening, and
supplies of brandy exhausting," the dresser had appealed "through
authentic sources for aid of the Almighty."

"Anyway, by Jove!" said the doctor, as he noted all the arrangements,
"I couldn't have done it better myself. He has even"--he pointed to a
row of men, evidently of the semi-savage Sansiya race, who were
squatting in front of the village accountant's house--"set them to
killing rats!"

And, in truth, each of these hardy hunters, bore a bamboo on which were
strung the dead bodies of many rodents, young and old. Undoubtedly Job
Charnock had a genius for organisation; and, with a mournful prescience
of what would be the answer, I asked the nearest Sansi what he was to
get for his rats.

It was half the Government rate: but the broad grin on the man's
face showed him satisfied. Yes! Job Charnock had the gift of the
Empire-builder!

"Look here!" I said to the doctor, "that man hasn't committed an
indictable offence. He diagnosed his complaint as plague--that is not
indictable; he went to your Department for advice and got confirmation
of his suspicions; that was not his fault; and all he's done since
then, is what _ought_ to have been done under the circumstances."

"Except the brandy," expostulated the doctor. "Brandy is not in the
dietary for plague, and he's drunk up the year's supply! That amounts
to stealing."

"Pardon me! You can have the dresser up for misuse of supplies, if you
like," I said stoutly, "but every drop of that brandy was drunk out of
one of your blessed measuring glasses." I pointed to the inverted
crystal cone with cabalistic signs on it which lay beside the bottle.
"He couldn't have taken more than an ounce at a time, and that to a man
of his habits is strictly a medicinal dose, and for that your dresser
is responsible. No! send him in to me when he sobers. I'll settle him
up."

I did so to the best of my ability, but there was no question that Job
Charnock was, as the doctor had said, "a bit looney" at times,
especially when he had any drink on board, though no one could have
called him a habitual drunkard. Still, there was little use in getting
him employment. He always drifted out of it again. Then, for a while,
he would disappear, only to return after a few months with his usual,
"I don't want to do no 'arm to anyone. I wants to be seggergated, for
I've got the plague, so 'elp me Gawd I 'ave." He was always, then, at
the last point of destitution; more than once even the "_hart banner_"
for the _ticca ghari_ was not his, and he would come skulking into the
office almost starving and barefoot. For he looked on me as a friend in
need; and, indeed, I used sometimes to wonder if hunger were not as
much responsible for the recurrence of his delusion as drink.

Then I was transferred to Rajputana, and apparently left Job Charnock
behind me, until one hot weather morning when, in order to catch a
train, I was galloping across a short cut of the wild Bar land which
lay between the railway and the out-of-the-way-place where I was
stationed. It is a strange desert, this Bar land, of wild caper bushes,
stunted _jund_ trees, and hard resilient limestone soil, baked by the
sun to whiteness. A horse's hoofs resounds over it for miles, but a
man, if he left visible path, might, without the aid of the sun, lose
his way in it almost any moment. Even I had to glance at the
whereabouts of that luminary when a few moment's abstraction caused me
to divert my eye from the faint traces of previous passages which was
all there was of path.

As I did so, my eye was caught by something curious in the gnarled
branches of a _jund_ tree some fifty yards further away. It looked like
a red cross. Instinctively I rode towards it. It was a red cross. Two
strips of red Turkey cotton had been carefully tied crosswise between
the branches. What did it mean? And why had that shallow trench--a mere
scraping on the hard soil--been traced between that tree and the next!

And--yes!--that was another red cross in its branches also! I rode on
only to find that here again the trench trended at right angles towards
a further tree where yet another red cross showed.

The grey, green, leafless triangle of caper bushes, all set with tiny
coral bud-flowers, had so far prevented my seeing anything within the
traced square; but now I came upon a definite opening. Across it,
however, from bush to bush, stretched a pair of men's braces, and
pinned to this was a bit of paper on which something was written in
what looked suspiciously like blood.

I jumped off my horse and bent to look at it. Though written in large
characters it was barely decipherable, and seemed to have been drawn
with difficulty by a pointed stick. This much I could read:


                   "_Trespussers will be persecuted_

                          _No Thoroughfare_

               _Case of Plague within s'elp me Gawd_."


Segregation! by all that was holy!

I tied my horse to the inarched root of a _jund_ tree, set aside the
braces, and made my way through the bushes.

It was quite a comfortable secluded spot. The grey-green
set-with-scarlet brocade of the caper bushes formed a curtain round it,
the floor of it was hard and white as marble; but in the middle of the
little open space there was, as one sees so often in this Bar land, a
tiny hillock of sand that had been whirled thither and left by the wild
dust storms which sweep over the Rajputana desert. And on this sand Job
Charnock lay, his face turned up to the sky. He cannot have been dead
long, for his body was untouched by wild birds or beasts, but he was
quite dead. Perhaps though, the sleeves of his turkey-red shirt--the
rest of it having evidently gone to the making of crosses--which were
hung on sticks set in the sand at his head and his feet might, so far,
have frightened away the animals. They might have been put there for
the purpose; on the other hand they might have been meant as a last
danger signal, not to prevent harm being done to him, but to prevent
him from "'arming anybody." His bare body showed terribly emaciated;
but his face was calm; it almost had a smile upon it.

Had he really died of the plague; or, in coming, it might be, to see
me, had he lost his way, as a stranger might well do, in the pathless
Bar, and fallen a victim to starvation? And had the recurrence of
hunger brought on his curious hallucination once more?

Who could say? Plague was very prevalent. It might be one; it might be
the other.

I stood looking at the peaceful face for a minute or two; then I made
up my mind. He should have his wish; no one this time should interfere
with his desire to "do no 'arm to nobody."

So, covering the body for the time with the doubled blanket I always
use as a saddle cloth, I rode off to the nearest village, some six
miles off, and returned with two men, pickaxes and shovels.

It took some time to dig a grave in that hard white soil; but when the
coolies had done patting down the dry dust and limestone nodules into
the long mound of earth which is the outward sign that a human body
lies beneath, I lingered to peg one of the red crosses over it.

So he found Segregation at last. There was no more fear of his doing
any harm to anyone.




                          SLAVE OF THE COURT


I sate in the sunshine of Delhi as it blazed down upon the trellised
tombs of a dead dynasty. I was very tired; as police officers are apt
to be when Crowned Heads travel in India. But my particular Monarch was
away from my jurisdiction laying foundation stones elsewhere, so I had
an off four-and-twenty hours. Not knowing Delhi as it should be known,
I utilised my holiday for slow, solitary, silent sight-seeing, in the
course of which I had driven out to the Kutb-minar, had bidden the
carriage return to await me by Humayon's Tomb, so, with lunch in my
pocket, had set out systematically to reconstruct old India out of the
crowding ruins.

It is a fascinating occupation; but one provocative of dreams, and, as
I rested, idly smoking, in the shade of a gnarled _jhund_ tree, I was
more than half asleep. Around me lay the graves of Kings who had once
ruled in the flesh. I had been trying, as it were, to live their lives,
to see with their eyes, and the conclusion had been forced in upon me
that though the monarchy had changed (and my particular Crowned Head
was certainly not to pattern of the Old Indian autocrat) the country
and the people had altered but little.

For instance, the pageant through the city streets of a few days past,
with the brazen sunlight setting silks and satins aflame with vivid
colours, and painting every shadow dark with the purple gloom of night,
was, as it were, of all time; the faces of the crowd through which it
cleft its way, were in type, in character, permanent.

I closed my eyes to visualize how the dapper Viceroy would have looked
had he been scattering golden pistachios, silver almonds and enamelled
rose leaves amongst the lieges, instead of sitting his horse
purposefully, like an ill-fitting statue and inwardly rehearsing the
detail of up-to-date benefits he had to proclaim at the end of his
ride? Were they, I wondered, more satisfactory than the older largesse?

When I opened my eyes, I saw a naked old man squatted forlornly
among the latticed graves. He held a flat basket--a gardener's
basket--between his knees; it contained only one compact posy of
closely crushed flowers--the _gul_ this and _gul_ that--beloved of
natives; but I saw that a similar bunch had been laid on several of the
tombs.

The man, however, was palpably _not_ a gardener. No one of Indian
experience who on real hot-weather evenings had wandered round his back
premises could have hesitated as to vocation. Either as _chef_ or
scullion, the figure belonged to the cook-room; there was that in its
very nakedness (save for a tight-wound waist cloth), that in the very
polish of the close-shaved head, which was quaintly reminiscent of
full-starched raiment and high-piled turban.

Now, I always speak to a native when I get him alone--it is a useful
habit for a police officer--so I said casually:

"On what tomb, friend, are you going to put that bunch?"

The old figure turned, profuse--of course!--in _salaam_; it showed a
wrinkled toothless face, overlaid with the smiles and subtlety of
centuries of service. But its reply was dazed, forlorn.

"This slave of the Court," it mumbled, "seeks for a tomb that was but
is not. God send some miscreant hath not taken the marble slab thereof
for his idolatrous curry-stone! Lo! I can find it nowhere, and the
inscription thereof is lost--is lost!"

A world of angry apprehension crept into the tired blear old eyes; the
tired old hand shook visibly.

"What inscription?" I asked idly.

"My inscription, Protector of the Poor!" came the tired old voice.
"Yea! whatever this slave of the Court said, the writer Abd-un-Nubbi
copied it."

I sate up more alert, vaguely reminiscent of something I had seen
lately. "What was it about?" I queried; this time curiously.

"About the Heaven-Nestled Kings the slave of the Court served," came
the reply, less wearily; and, as if some stored memory cylinder had
been set going by keywords, the voice went on, gaining strength: "This
old slave of the Court does not feel any shame in serving the Kings and
the Nobles! This old slave of the Court, Mahmud, supplicates God that
the name of the Heaven-Nestled Emperor Humayon and the Heaven-Nestled
Emperor Akbar may be perpetuated for all time! Lo! may they have been
given the robe of Paradise! This old slave of the Court honoured by the
Earth-Cherished Emperor Jahangir was told, 'You have grown old. Serve
in the tomb of the Heaven-Nestled One at Delhi.'

"Humbly says Mahmud, old slave of the Court! He has come nigh to ninety
years, he has come nigh his end. He has passed his life in luxury and
ease through the kindness of Kings. Oh! Mahmud! no desire is left
unfulfilled. Of giving and taking, buying and selling, bargainings in
the bazaar, all is done with now!

"Lo! in this seat of Delhi, the rulers and the landholders, the elders
and the neighbours should entrust this tomb and shrine (of which the
total amount of expenses, including all necessary articles and
allowances was 290,000 tankas) to those who are my heirs and who
deserve to possess it, as it was built with my honestly-earned money."
The long-drawn-out quaintly ungrammatical Persian phrases ceased in a
melancholy refrain: "But it has gone, Huzoor! Someone has taken away my
tombstone."

I knew now what he was talking about; knew why that faint message of
memory had come to me. I had seen this inscription, or something like
it, in the Delhi Museum, on a square slab of white marble which the
catalogue said had been found amongst some ruins not far from where we
were sitting.

I looked at the old man; though he himself was well on in years, the
impossibility of his words made me pass over major points to cavil at
minor ones.

"My tombstone!" I echoed. "I suppose you mean this King's cook was a
forbear of yours. You come of a servant family, I expect, ah! Prince of
Personalities."

I gave him the full title of the highest domestic office with intent.
It had a marvellous effect. His bowed back straightened itself; he
seemed to sit resplendent in gold-laced coat and badge-wound turban.
"The Huzoor speaks truth," he said, with perfectly blatant dignity.
"Since the beginning of time my people have served Kings--and Sahibs."

The last was a palpable concession to the alien, and I could not help
smiling. But the old man, despite his toothless, wrinkled, wagging
head, was no subject for smiles. He sate there transfigured, his face
shiny, an apotheosis of what folk nowadays call servility. You felt it
in the warm scented sunshine; an atmosphere of dutiful devotion that
brought a kindly interest to my heart.

"It hasn't been taken as a curry-stone," I said gravely: "it is quite
safe. I saw it yesterday in the Wonder House." And then I remembered
that my Crowned Head had paused over it to look and smile. "Yes! Prince
of Personalities," I went on, "there it is. A marble slab with an
inscription." So I went on to tell him what had occurred.

He sate and listened, gravely, reverently, and when I had finished he
rose--I knew he would--and salaamed down to the ground.

"This poor Preparer-of-Plates is proud still to serve Majesty. May the
Earth cherish the Wise King long! May Heaven nestle him when the time
comes for soul to separate from body."

As I looked into the blazing sunshine at the old, naked, bald-headed
figure, I swear it seemed to me clothed upon with all the liveries of
all those centuries of service.

"Lo!" he went on, "let the tombstone remain in the Wonder House where
it hath been honoured by the eye-glances of Kings. And as for the Noble
Huzoor who hath relieved this poor slave of the Court's mind concerning
curry-stones----" he paused, took up the remaining posy from his basket
and held it out to me between deferential palms. "It is all I have,
Huzoor, but it is sweet," he said simply, "and I have asked so many
before, and none could tell me."

In sudden impulse I took it. "I'll tell you what I'll do, Prince of
Personalities!" I said, half in jest, "I'll stop at the Wonder House on
my way home and put it on the tombstone. Will that satisfy you?"

Once again he salaamed to the ground. "The gratitude of this old slave
of the Court will go with the Huzoor all his days."

I left him salaaming still among the graves. As I drove back I
regretted not having lingered to pick his brains concerning those
centuries of his ancestors' service. Good stories must have been handed
down as heirlooms; one curious as I was of the past might have heard
much of interest.

But holiday was over. My Crowned Head had returned, making me
responsible. In addition, fate was unkind. My major-domo, on whose care
during those strenuous days when meals were oft-deferred. I was
entirely dependent, fell sick and had to go to hospital. Not, however,
before he had, in kindly Indian fashion, found me a substitute.
Everyone who has been in India knows the type of professional cook-room
substitute. They are to be seen sometimes in old dâk bungalows,
survivals still of the patronage of other days when such posts were the
recognised superannuation pensions for civilians' servants. And this
substitute of mine--I call them scapegoats as a rule, since all the
subsequent sins of omission or commission in the back purlieus are
invariably laid to their charge--differed in no way from the type. He
was rather more aggressive in starch than most. He had the biggest of
white turbans, and the forward bow of his arched back was a little more
accentuated than usual by folds on folds of white bandaging until he
looked as if he were wearing an extra sized, new whited motor tyre
round his waist. But his scanty beard was purple black, and his eyes
were brightened to youth with beautiful rims of antimony. Altogether he
looked his part to perfection; and for a wonder, performed it also.

My table servant admitted at once that he was a "master artificer," and
I, personally, confessed that never had I had such appetising dinners.
Most of these substitutes have old-world dishes at their fingers' ends;
dishes with strange names which philology can trace back to French and
Portuguese origin, but this old man might have come from a Parisian
restaurant.

"This slave belongs to a family of cooks," he said calmly, when I
questioned him as to where he had learnt to make "_Petits Timbales de
foie gras à la Belle Eugénie_." "Therefore the wisdom of all the ages
is at his disposal. When a slave's mind is set on serving his master,
nothing is impossible."

And nothing seemed to be. My Inspector-General was a gourmet. He
breakfasted with me in camp one morning, and after that it is
surprising how often his meal times tallied with mine. So, in the
course of a few days, the fame of my cook became noised abroad;
especially when the Crowned Head started on a shooting tour and had to
leave his French chef behind him; the latter not feeling equal to camp
fires.

Then the Substitute came to the fore, and once or twice when I had the
honour of dining at the Royal table, I noticed dishes which I could
have sworn my man had prepared. Knowing the curious bond of brotherhood
which exists in India between one cook-room and another, I knew this
was quite possible.

We had some hard marching, and at the end of a week, I noticed that my
substitute was palpably older. The _surma_ had worn off his eyes; there
was a fringe of grey beard above the purple black; yet still he looked
magnificently starched as he stood behind my chair on the frequent
occasions when the suite messed with royalty. Then we arrived at a Hill
Rajah-ship where there had been some trouble during a long minority
between Palace-Women and a Council of Regency; neither being
oversatisfied with the Resident. But our Royal visit was to inaugurate
a new regime under a new young Rajah, and great were to be the
rejoicings; amongst other things a State Dinner in the Palace.

We were a bit late coming in from a shoot after black partridge, and I
had a good many preparations to make, as I was in police charge, so
that it was almost dark ere I returned to my tent to dress for dinner.
To my surprise I found the Substitute immaculate one inside. He was
immaculate as ever, but he looked old and frail and worn. Still it
needed one of those sudden enlargements of personality, which are so
puzzling, to make the shadows of the tent bring what the light of day
had denied to me--recognition of the old man I had met amongst the
latticed Tombs of Kings--the man who had lost his tombstone.

"You old scoundrel," I said. "Why didn't you tell me before who you
were."

He salaamed a trifle furtively as he replied, "It is nothing to the
master who his servant is, so that the servant be faithful, and I am
that. My gratitude is bound to the Huzoor for ever and ever. So I came
to ask what Tasters have been appointed for the Earth-Cherished-One
this evening."

"Tasters?" I echoed. "What the deuce do you mean? Tasters!" Then it
flashed upon me that he was alluding to the old "Tasters for Poison";
and I looked at him curiously. In the semi-darkness he seemed to have
shrunken, to be inconceivably old and frail, so I went on more kindly.
"There's no need for them nowadays, old man. They belong to the past.
The King--God bless him!--is safe from that sort of thing. Thank
Heaven."

I was throwing off my shooting togs vigorously, and the answer came out
of the corner of the tent, as it were, vaguely.

"So said Firdoos Makâni, the Sainted Babar in Paradise, yet he had to
live a full month on lily leaves, and the Heaven-Nestled One the
Emperor Humayon was also--"

"Look here! old chap!" I said, divided between haste and the desire to
tap these old stories. "You shall tell me all that to-morrow. At
present I must be off to the Palace to see all is right." Then I
laughed. "Other days other manners. Ah! descendant of Mahmud the King's
Cook! we have to look after bombs, not poisons, nowadays."

The answer came faintly to me, "The wickedness of men's hearts is ever
the same, Huzoor!"

I do not think I ever saw a prettier entertainment. The long-eyed
lazy-looking young Rajah must have had the blood of past sybarites in
his veins, for he had enhanced Oriental splendour with Western
refinement to perfection.

Having seen by a glance that all my detectives were in their places,
knowing also the infinite precautions which had been secretly taken on
all sides, and feeling fairly secure of the young ruler's personal
loyalty, I felt I might enjoy myself, and I did. The champagne was iced
to perfection, the illuminations glimmered softly away into the gloom
of the lake, a band of native musicians, beautifully trained,
discoursed plaintive love songs on native instruments deftly entuned to
almost Western modulations, the dinner was super-excellent, a
combination of Eastern and Western delicacies, and there was not one
single hitch in the arrangements, except for a slight _contretemps_,
due, apparently, to short-sightedness on the part of my venerable
Scapegoat. He collided with the State servant who was handing a special
tray of curried _koftahs_ to the Crowned Head, with the result that the
Crowned Head did not even get a taste of it. But the accident only
raised a moment's laugh. The debris was cleared away in a twinkling,
and I caught sight of the offender's scared protesting face as he was
hustled away from further mischief.

After dinner we had a really excellent pantomime in dumb show by native
actors, so it was past midnight ere I returned to my tent. I found my
Chief Inspector, a man I could really trust, a man whose wide
experience was of infinite use to me, standing outside.

"A report, Huzoor!" he said briefly, and I passed into the office. He
looked all round, carefully closed the screens, and then began in a low
voice:

"Huzoor! When your Honour's servant upset the State servant and
his dish, I was close by. There was a look on your Honour's
servant's face I did not understand. They scrambled instantly for the
_koftahs_--scrambled hastily--to pick them up. But I got _one_, Huzoor.
I gave it to a dog; and Huzoor! the dog is dead!"

I could scarcely speak. "Dead! ye Gods!" Then I remembered that the dog
would be needful evidence, and said at once, "Where is the body? Bring
it here."

But, if there had been a conspiracy to poison, the conspirators had
been too quick for us. The _corpus delicti_ was not where it had been
left. Neither was the Substitute to be found. The other servants
reported that, overcome with shame at his unpardonable offence in
depriving an Earth-Cherished-One of his victuals, he had retired into
the wilderness. Whence he never returned.

My Inspector-General used to bewail the _Petits Timbales de foie gras à
la Belle Eugénie_. But I have never ceased to wonder. And every time I
go to Delhi I go to the Wonder House and lay a posy on the tombstone of
Mahmud, the old Slave of the Court.

The gratitude was to be for ever and ever; so there is time for more
yet.



                              FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: Ganêsh is the Indian God of Wisdom. He is always portrayed
with the head of an elephant.]

[Footnote 2: Old woman.]

[Footnote 3: Pleasant smell.]

[Footnote 4: Hanooman.]




                          *   *   *   *   *
               Jas. Truscott & Son, Ltd., London, E.C.








End of Project Gutenberg's The Mercy of the Lord, by Flora Annie Steel