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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Africa
+
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Africa
+
+Contains:
+THE MYSTERY OF SASASSA VALLEY, A. Conan Doyle
+LONG ODDS, H. Rider Haggard
+KING BEMBA'S POINT, J. Landers
+GHAMBA, W. C. Scully
+MARY MUSGRAVE, Anonymous
+GREGORIO, Percy Hemingway
+
+
+November, 1999  [Etext #1980]
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Africa
+******This file should be named sbeaa10.txt or sbeaa10.zip******
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+
+Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+and John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+
+The story LONG ODDS was prepared by Christopher Hapka, Sunnyvale,
+California.
+
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+
+
+Etext prepared by Dagny, dagnyj@hotmail.com
+and John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+
+The story LONG ODDS was prepared by Christopher Hapka, Sunnyvale,
+California.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: AFRICA
+By Various
+
+
+
+
+STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS
+
+AFRICA
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+THE MYSTERY OF SASASSA VALLEY, A. Conan Doyle
+LONG ODDS, H. Rider Haggard
+KING BEMBA'S POINT, J. Landers
+GHAMBA, W. C. Scully
+MARY MUSGRAVE, Anonymous
+GREGORIO, Percy Hemingway
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY OF SASASSA VALLEY
+
+BY
+
+A. CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+
+Do I know why Tom Donahue is called "Lucky Tom"? Yes, I do; and that
+is more than one in ten of those who call him so can say. I have
+knocked about a deal in my time, and seen some strange sights, but
+none stranger than the way in which Tom gained that sobriquet, and his
+fortune with it. For I was with him at the time. Tell it? Oh,
+certainly; but it is a longish story and a very strange one; so fill
+up your glass again, and light another cigar, while I try to reel it
+off. Yes, a very strange one; beats some fairy stories I have heard;
+but it's true, sir, every word of it. There are men alive at Cape
+Colony now who'll remember it and confirm what I say. Many a time has
+the tale been told round the fire in Boers' cabins from Orange state
+to Griqualand; yes, and out in the bush and at the diamond-fields too.
+
+I'm roughish now, sir; but I was entered at the Middle Temple once,
+and studied for the bar. Tom--worse luck!--was one of my fellow-
+students; and a wildish time we had of it, until at last our finances
+ran short, and we were compelled to give up our so-called studies, and
+look about for some part of the world where two young fellows with
+strong arms and sound constitutions might make their mark. In those
+days the tide of emigration had scarcely begun to set in toward
+Africa, and so we thought our best chance would be down at Cape
+Colony. Well,--to make a long story short,--we set sail, and were
+deposited in Cape Town with less than five pounds in our pockets; and
+there we parted. We each tried our hands at many things, and had ups
+and downs; but when, at the end of three years, chance led each of us
+up-country and we met again, we were, I regret to say, in almost as
+bad a plight as when we started.
+
+Well, this was not much of a commencement; and very disheartened we
+were, so disheartened that Tom spoke of going back to England and
+getting a clerkship. For you see we didn't know that we had played out
+all our small cards, and that the trumps were going to turn up. No; we
+thought our "hands" were bad all through. It was a very lonely part of
+the country that we were in, inhabited by a few scattered farms, whose
+houses were stockaded and fenced in to defend them against the
+Kaffirs. Tom Donahue and I had a little hut right out in the bush; but
+we were known to possess nothing, and to be handy with our revolvers,
+so we had little to fear. There we waited, doing odd jobs, and hoping
+that something would turn up. Well, after we had been there about a
+month something did turn up upon a certain night, something which was
+the making of both of us; and it's about that night, sir, that I'm
+going to tell you. I remember it well. The wind was howling past our
+cabin, and the rain threatened to burst in our rude window. We had a
+great wood fire crackling and sputtering on the hearth, by which I was
+sitting mending a whip, while Tom was lying in his bunk groaning
+disconsolately at the chance which had led him to such a place.
+
+"Cheer up, Tom--cheer up," said I. "No man ever knows what may be
+awaiting him."
+
+"Ill luck, ill luck, Jack," he answered. "I always was an unlucky dog.
+Here have I been three years in this abominable country; and I see
+lads fresh from England jingling the money in their pockets, while I
+am as poor as when I landed. Ah, Jack, if you want to keep your head
+above water, old friend, you must try your fortune away from me."
+
+"Nonsense, Tom; you're down in your luck to-night. But hark! Here's
+some one coming outside. Dick Wharton, by the tread; he'll rouse you,
+if any man can."
+
+Even as I spoke the door was flung open, and honest Dick Wharton, with
+the water pouring from him, stepped in, his hearty red face looming
+through the haze like a harvest-moon. He shook himself, and after
+greeting us sat down by the fire to warm himself.
+
+"Where away, Dick, on such a night as this?" said I. "You'll find the
+rheumatism a worse foe than the Kaffirs, unless you keep more regular
+hours."
+
+Dick was looking unusually serious, almost frightened, one would say,
+if one did not know the man. "Had to go," he replied--"had to go. One
+of Madison's cattle was seen straying down Sasassa Valley, and of
+course none of our blacks would go down /that/ valley at night; and if
+we had waited till morning, the brute would have been in Kaffirland."
+
+"Why wouldn't they go down Sasassa Valley at night?" asked Tom.
+
+"Kaffirs, I suppose," said I.
+
+"Ghosts," said Dick.
+
+We both laughed.
+
+"I suppose they didn't give such a matter-of-fact fellow as you a
+sight of their charms?" said Tom, from the bunk.
+
+"Yes," said Dick, seriously, "yes; I saw what the niggers talk about;
+and I promise you, lads, I don't want ever to see it again."
+
+Tom sat up in his bed. "Nonsense, Dick; you're joking, man! Come, tell
+us all about it; the legend first, and your own experience afterward.
+Pass him over the bottle, Jack."
+
+"Well, as to the legend," began Dick. "It seems that the niggers have
+had it handed down to them that Sasassa Valley is haunted by a
+frightful fiend. Hunters and wanderers passing down the defile have
+seen its glowing eyes under the shadows of the cliff; and the story
+goes that whoever has chanced to encounter that baleful glare has had
+his after-life blighted by the malignant power of this creature.
+Whether that be true or not," continued Dick, ruefully, "I may have an
+opportunity of judging for myself."
+
+"Go on, Dick--go on," cried Tom. "Let's hear about what you saw."
+
+"Well, I was groping down the valley, looking for that cow of
+Madison's, and I had, I suppose, got half-way down, where a black
+craggy cliff juts into the ravine on the right, when I halted to have
+a pull at my flask. I had my eye fixed at the time upon the projecting
+cliff I have mentioned, and noticed nothing unusual about it. I then
+put up my flask and took a step or two forward, when in a moment there
+burst, apparently from the base of the rock, about eight feet from the
+ground and a hundred yards from me, a strange, lurid glare, flickering
+and oscillating, gradually dying away and then reappearing again. No,
+no; I've seen many a glow-worm and firefly--nothing of that sort.
+There it was, burning away, and I suppose I gazed at it, trembling in
+every limb, for fully ten minutes. Then I took a step forward, when
+instantly it vanished, vanished like a candle blown out. I stepped
+back again; but it was some time before I could find the exact spot
+and position from which it was visible. At last, there it was, the
+weird reddish light, flickering away as before. Then I screwed up my
+courage, and made for the rock; but the ground was so uneven that it
+was impossible to steer straight; and though I walked along the whole
+base of the cliff, I could see nothing. Then I made tracks for home;
+and I can tell you, boys, that, until you remarked it, I never knew it
+was raining, the whole way along. But hollo! what's the matter with
+Tom?"
+
+What indeed? Tom was now sitting with his legs over the side of the
+bunk, and his whole face betraying excitement so intense as to be
+almost painful. "The fiend would have two eyes. How many lights did
+you see, Dick? Speak out!"
+
+"Only one."
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Tom, "that's better." Whereupon he kicked the blankets
+into the middle of the room, and began pacing up and down with long
+feverish strides. Suddenly he stopped opposite Dick, and laid his hand
+upon his shoulder. "I say, Dick, could we get to Sasassa Valley before
+sunrise?"
+
+"Scarcely," said Dick.
+
+"Well, look here; we are old friends, Dick Wharton, you and I. Now
+don't you tell any other man what you have told us, for a week. You'll
+promise that, won't you?"
+
+I could see by the look on Dick's face as he acquiesced that he
+considered poor Tom to be mad; and indeed I was myself completely
+mystified by his conduct. I had, however, seen so many proofs of my
+friend's good sense and quickness of apprehension that I thought it
+quite possible that Wharton's story had had a meaning in his eyes
+which I was too obtuse to take in.
+
+All night Tom Donahue was greatly excited, and when Wharton left he
+begged him to remember his promise, and also elicited from him a
+description of the exact spot at which he had seen the apparition, as
+well as the hour at which it appeared. After his departure, which must
+have been about four in the morning, I turned into my bunk and watched
+Tom sitting by the fire splicing two sticks together, until I fell
+asleep. I suppose I must have slept about two hours; but when I awoke
+Tom was still sitting working away in almost the same position. He had
+fixed the one stick across the top of the other so as to form a rough
+T, and was now busy in fitting a smaller stick into the angle between
+them, by manipulating which, the cross one could be either cocked up
+or depressed to any extent. He had cut notches, too, in the
+perpendicular stick, so that, by the aid of the small prop, the cross
+one could be kept in any position for an indefinite time.
+
+"Look here, Jack!" he cried, when he saw that I was awake. "Come and
+give me your opinion. Suppose I put this cross-stick pointing straight
+at a thing, and arranged this small one so as to keep it so, and left
+it, I could find that thing again if I wanted it--don't you think I
+could, Jack--don't you think so?" he continued, nervously, clutching
+me by the arm.
+
+"Well," I answered, "it would depend on how far off the thing was, and
+how accurately it was pointed. If it were any distance, I'd cut sights
+on your cross-stick; then a string tied to the end of it, and held in
+a plumb-line forward, would lend you pretty near what you wanted. But
+surely, Tom, you don't intend to localise the ghost in that way?"
+
+"You'll see to-night, old friend--you'll see to-night. I'll carry this
+to the Sasassa Valley. You get the loan of Madison's crowbar, and come
+with me; but mind you tell no man where you are going, or what you
+want it for."
+
+All day Tom was walking up and down the room, or working hard at the
+apparatus. His eyes were glistening, his cheeks hectic, and he had all
+the symptoms of high fever. "Heaven grant that Dick's diagnosis be not
+correct!" I thought, as I returned with the crowbar; and yet, as
+evening drew near, I found myself imperceptibly sharing the
+excitement.
+
+About six o'clock Tom sprang to his feet and seized his sticks. "I can
+stand it no longer, Jack," he cried; "up with your crowbar, and hey
+for Sasassa Valley! To-night's work, my lad, will either make us or
+mar us! Take your six-shooter, in case we meet the Kaffirs. I daren't
+take mine, Jack," he continued, putting his hands upon my shoulders--
+"I daren't take mine; for if my ill luck sticks to me to-night, I
+don't know what I might not do with it."
+
+Well, having filled our pockets with provisions, we set out, and, as
+we took our wearisome way toward the Sasassa Valley, I frequently
+attempted to elicit from my companion some clue as to his intentions.
+But his only answer was: "Let us hurry on, Jack. Who knows how many
+have heard of Wharton's adventure by this time! Let us hurry on, or we
+may not be first in the field!"
+
+Well, sir, we struggled on through the hills for a matter of ten
+miles; till at last, after descending a crag, we saw opening out in
+front of us a ravine so sombre and dark that it might have been the
+gate of Hades itself; cliffs many hundred feet shut in on every side
+the gloomy boulder-studded passage which led through the haunted
+defile into Kaffirland. The moon, rising above the crags, threw into
+strong relief the rough, irregular pinnacles of rock by which they
+were topped, while all below was dark as Erebus.
+
+"The Sasassa Valley?" said I.
+
+"Yes," said Tom.
+
+I looked at him. He was calm now; the flush and feverishness had
+passed away; his actions were deliberate and slow. Yet there was a
+certain rigidity in his face and glitter in his eye which showed that
+a crisis had come.
+
+We entered the pass, stumbling along amid the great boulders. Suddenly
+I heard a short, quick exclamation from Tom. "That's the crag!" he
+cried, pointing to a great mass looming before us in the darkness.
+"Now, Jack, for any favour use your eyes! We're about a hundred yards
+from that cliff, I take it; so you move slowly toward one side and
+I'll do the same toward the other. When you see anything, stop and
+call out. Don't take more than twelve inches in a step, and keep your
+eye fixed on the cliff about eight feet from the ground. Are you
+ready?"
+
+"Yes." I was even more excited than Tom by this time. What his
+intention or object was I could not conjecture, beyond that he wanted
+to examine by daylight the part of the cliff from which the light
+came. Yet the influence of the romantic situation and my companion's
+suppressed excitement was so great that I could feel the blood
+coursing through my veins and count the pulses throbbing at my
+temples.
+
+"Start!" cried Tom; and we moved off, he to the right, I to the left,
+each with our eyes fixed intently on the base of the crag. I had moved
+perhaps twenty feet, when in a moment it burst upon me. Through the
+growing darkness there shone a small, ruddy, glowing point, the light
+from which waned and increased, flickered and oscillated, each change
+producing a more weird effect than the last. The old Kaffir
+superstition came into my mind, and I felt a cold shudder pass over
+me. In my excitement I stepped a pace backward, when instantly the
+light went out, leaving utter darkness in its place; but when I
+advanced again, there was the ruddy glare glowing from the base of the
+cliff. "Tom, Tom!" I cried.
+
+"Ay, ay!" I heard him exclaim, as he hurried over toward me.
+
+"There it is--there, up against the cliff!"
+
+Tom was at my elbow. "I see nothing," said he.
+
+"Why, there, there, man, in front of you!" I stepped to the right as I
+spoke, when the light instantly vanished from my eyes.
+
+But from Tom's ejaculations of delight it was clear that from my
+former position it was visible to him also. "Jack," he cried, as he
+turned and wrung my hand--"Jack, you and I can never complain of our
+luck again. Now heap up a few stones where we are standing. That's
+right. Now we must fix my sign-post firmly in at the top. There! It
+would take a strong wind to blow that down; and we only need it to
+hold out till morning. O Jack, my boy, to think that only yesterday we
+were talking of becoming clerks, and you saying that no man knew what
+was awaiting him, too! By Jove, Jack, it would make a good story!"
+
+By this time we had firmly fixed the perpendicular stick in between
+the two large stones; and Tom bent down and peered along the
+horizontal one. For fully a quarter of an hour he was alternately
+raising and depressing it, until at last, with a sigh of satisfaction,
+he fixed the prop into the angle, and stood up. "Look along, Jack," he
+said. "You have as straight an eye to take a sight as any man I know
+of."
+
+I looked along. There beyond the farther sight was the ruddy,
+scintillating speck, apparently at the end of the stick itself, so
+accurately had it been adjusted.
+
+"And now, my boy," said Tom, "let's have some supper and a sleep.
+There's nothing more to be done to-night; but we'll need all our wits
+and strength to-morrow. Get some sticks and kindle a fire here, and
+then we'll be able to keep an eye on our signal-post, and see that
+nothing happens to it during the night."
+
+Well, sir, we kindled a fire, and had supper with the Sasassa demon's
+eye rolling and glowing in front of us the whole night through. Not
+always in the same place, though; for after supper, when I glanced
+along the sights to have another look at it, it was nowhere to be
+seen. The information did not, however, seem to disturb Tom in any
+way. He merely remarked, "It's the moon, not the thing, that has
+shifted;" and coiling himself up, went to sleep.
+
+By early dawn we were both up, and gazing along our pointer at the
+cliff; but we could make out nothing save the one dead, monotonous,
+slaty surface, rougher perhaps at the part we were examining than
+elsewhere, but otherwise presenting nothing remarkable.
+
+"Now for your idea, Jack!" said Tom Donahue, unwinding a long thin
+cord from round his waist. "You fasten it, and guide me while I take
+the other end." So saying, he walked off to the base of the cliff,
+holding one end of the cord, while I drew the other taut, and wound it
+round the middle of the horizontal stick, passing it through the sight
+at the end. By this means I could direct Tom to the right or left,
+until we had our string stretching from the point of attachment,
+through the sight, and on to the rock, which it struck about eight
+feet from the ground. Tom drew a chalk circle of about three feet
+diameter round the spot, and then called to me to come and join him.
+"We've managed this business together, Jack," he said, "and we'll find
+what we are to find, together." The circle he had drawn embraced a
+part of the rock smoother than the rest, save that about the centre
+there were a few rough protuberances or knobs. One of these Tom
+pointed to with a cry of delight. It was a roughish, brownish mass
+about the size of a man's closed fist, and looking like a bit of dirty
+glass let into the wall of the cliff. "That's it!" he cried--"that's
+it!"
+
+"That's what?"
+
+"Why, man, /a diamond/, and such a one as there isn't a monarch in
+Europe but would envy Tom Donahue the possession of. Up with your
+crowbar, and we'll soon exorcise the demon of Sasassa Valley!"
+
+I was so astounded that for a moment I stood speechless with surprise,
+gazing at the treasure which had so unexpectedly fallen into our
+hands.
+
+"Here, hand me the crowbar," said Tom. "Now, by using this little
+round knob which projects from the cliff here as a fulcrum, we may be
+able to lever it off. Yes; there it goes. I never thought it could
+have come so easily. Now, Jack, the sooner we get back to our hut and
+then down to Cape Town, the better."
+
+We wrapped up our treasure, and made our way across the hills toward
+home. On the way, Tom told me how, while a law student in the Middle
+Temple, he had come upon a dusty pamphlet in the library, by one Jans
+van Hounym, which told of an experience very similar to ours, which
+had befallen that worthy Dutchman in the latter part of the
+seventeenth century, and which resulted in the discovery of a luminous
+diamond. This tale it was which had come into Tom's head as he
+listened to honest Dick Wharton's ghost-story, while the means which
+he had adopted to verify his supposition sprang from his own fertile
+Irish brain.
+
+"We'll take it down to Cape Town," continued Tom, "and if we can't
+dispose of it with advantage there, it will be worth our while to ship
+for London with it. Let us go along to Madison's first, though; he
+knows something of these things, and can perhaps give us some idea of
+what we may consider a fair price for our treasure."
+
+We turned off from the track accordingly, before reaching our hut, and
+kept along the narrow path leading to Madison's farm. He was at lunch
+when we entered; and in a minute we were seated at each side of him,
+enjoying South African hospitality.
+
+"Well," he said, after the servants were gone, "what's in the wind
+now? I see you have something to say to me. What is it?"
+
+Tom produced his packet, and solemnly untied the handkerchiefs which
+enveloped it. "There!" he said, putting his crystal on the table;
+"what would you say was a fair price for that?"
+
+Madison took it up and examined it critically. "Well," he said, laying
+it down again, "in its crude state about twelve shillings per ton."
+
+"Twelve shillings!" cried Tom, starting to his feet. "Don't you see
+what it is?"
+
+"Rock-salt!"
+
+"Rock-salt be d--d! a diamond."
+
+"Taste it!" said Madison.
+
+Tom put it to his lips, dashed it down with a dreadful exclamation,
+and rushed out of the room.
+
+I felt sad and disappointed enough myself; but presently, remembering
+what Tom had said about the pistol, I, too left the house, and made
+for the hut, leaving Madison open-mouthed with astonishment. When I
+got in, I found Tom lying in his bunk with his face to the wall, too
+dispirited apparently to answer my consolations. Anathematising Dick
+and Madison, the Sasassa demon, and everything else, I strolled out of
+the hut, and refreshed myself with a pipe after our wearisome
+adventure. I was about fifty yards from the hut, when I heard issuing
+from it the sound which of all others I least expected to hear. Had it
+been a groan or an oath, I should have taken it as a matter of course;
+but the sound which caused me to stop and take the pipe out of my
+mouth was a hearty roar of laughter! Next moment Tom himself emerged
+from the door, his whole face radiant with delight. "Game for another
+ten-mile walk, old fellow?"
+
+"What! for another lump of rock-salt, at twelve shillings a ton?"
+
+" 'No more of that, Hal, an you love me,' " grinned Tom. "Now look
+here, Jack. What blessed fools we are to be so floored by a trifle!
+Just sit on this stump for five minutes, and I'll make it as clear as
+daylight. You've seen many a lump of rock-salt stuck in a crag, and so
+have I, though we did make such a mull of this one. Now, Jack, did any
+of the pieces you have ever seen shine in the darkness brighter than
+any fire-fly?"
+
+"Well, I can't say they ever did."
+
+"I'd venture to prophesy that if we waited until night, which we won't
+do, we would see that light still glimmering among the rocks.
+Therefore, Jack, when we took away this worthless salt, we took the
+wrong crystal. It is no very strange thing in these hills that a piece
+of rock-salt should be lying within a foot of a diamond. It caught our
+eyes, and we were excited, and so we made fools of ourselves, and
+/left the real stone behind/. Depend upon it, Jack, the Sasassa gem is
+lying within that magic circle of chalk upon the face of yonder cliff.
+Come, old fellow, light your pipe and stow your revolver, and we'll be
+off before that fellow Madison has time to put two and two together."
+
+I don't know that I was very sanguine this time. I had begun, in fact,
+to look upon the diamond as a most unmitigated nuisance. However,
+rather than throw a damper on Tom's expectations, I announced myself
+eager to start. What a walk it was! Tom was always a good mountaineer,
+but his excitement seemed to lend him wings that day, while I
+scrambled along after him as best I could.
+
+When we got within half a mile he broke into the "double," and never
+pulled up until he reached the round white circle upon the cliff. Poor
+old Tom! when I came up, his mood had changed, and he was standing
+with his hands in his pockets, gazing vacantly before him with a
+rueful countenance.
+
+"Look!" he said, "look!" and he pointed at the cliff. Not a sign of
+anything in the least resembling a diamond there. The circle included
+nothing but a flat slate-coloured stone, with one large hole, where we
+had extracted the rock-salt, and one or two smaller depressions. No
+sign of the gem.
+
+"I've been over every inch of it," said poor Tom. "It's not there.
+Some one has been here and noticed the chalk, and taken it. Come home,
+Jack; I feel sick and tired. Oh, had any man ever luck like mine!"
+
+I turned to go, but took one last look at the cliff first. Tom was
+already ten paces off.
+
+"Hollo!" I cried, "don't you see any change in that circle since
+yesterday?"
+
+"What d' ye mean?" said Tom.
+
+"Don't you miss a thing that was there before?"
+
+"The rock-salt?" said Tom.
+
+"No; but the little round knob that we used for a fulcrum. I suppose
+we must have wrenched it off in using the lever. Let's have a look at
+what it's made of."
+
+Accordingly, at the foot of the cliff we searched about among the
+loose stones.
+
+"Here you are, Jack! We've done it at last! We're made men!"
+
+I turned round, and there was Tom radiant with delight, and with the
+little corner of black rock in his hand. At first sight it seemed to
+be merely a chip from the cliff; but near the base there was
+projecting from it an object which Tom was now exultingly pointing
+out. It looked at first something like a glass eye; but there was a
+depth and brilliancy about it such as glass never exhibited. There was
+no mistake this time; we had certainly got possession of a jewel of
+great value; and with light hearts we turned from the valley, bearing
+away with us the "fiend" which had so long reigned there.
+
+There, sir; I've spun my story out too long, and tired you perhaps.
+You see, when I get talking of those rough old days, I kind of see the
+little cabin again, and the brook beside it, and the bush around, and
+seem to hear Tom's honest voice once more. There's little for me to
+say now. We prospered on the gem. Tom Donahue, as you know, has set up
+here, and is well known about town. I have done well, farming and
+ostrich-raising in Africa. We set old Dick Wharton up in business, and
+he is one of our nearest neighbours. If you should ever be coming up
+our way, sir, you'll not forget to ask for Jack Turnbull--Jack
+Turnbull of Sasassa Farm.
+
+
+
+LONG ODDS
+
+BY
+
+H. RIDER HAGGARD
+
+
+
+The story which is narrated in the following pages came to me from the
+lips of my old friend Allan Quatermain, or Hunter Quatermain, as we
+used to call him in South Africa. He told it to me one evening when I
+was stopping with him at the place he bought in Yorkshire. Shortly
+after that, the death of his only son so unsettled him that he
+immediately left England, accompanied by two companions, his old
+fellow-voyagers, Sir Henry Curtis and Captain Good, and has now
+utterly vanished into the dark heart of Africa. He is persuaded that a
+white people, of which he has heard rumours all his life, exists
+somewhere on the highlands in the vast, still unexplored interior, and
+his great ambition is to find them before he dies. This is the wild
+quest upon which he and his companions have departed, and from which I
+shrewdly suspect they never will return. One letter only have I
+received from the old gentleman, dated from a mission station high up
+the Tana, a river on the east coast, about three hundred miles north
+of Zanzibar; in it he says that they have gone through many hardships
+and adventures, but are alive and well, and have found traces which go
+far toward making him hope that the results of their wild quest may be
+a "magnificent and unexampled discovery." I greatly fear, however,
+that all he has discovered is death; for this letter came a long while
+ago, and nobody has heard a single word of the party since. They have
+totally vanished.
+
+It was on the last evening of my stay at his house that he told the
+ensuing story to me and Captain Good, who was dining with him. He had
+eaten his dinner and drunk two or three glasses of old port, just to
+help Good and myself to the end of the second bottle. It was an
+unusual thing for him to do, for he was a most abstemious man, having
+conceived, as he used to say, a great horror of drink from observing
+its effects upon the class of colonists--hunters, transport-riders and
+others--amongst whom he had passed so many years of his life.
+Consequently the good wine took more effect on him than it would have
+done on most men, sending a little flush into his wrinkled cheeks, and
+making him talk more freely than usual.
+
+Dear old man! I can see him now, as he went limping up and down the
+vestibule, with his gray hair sticking up in scrubbing-brush fashion,
+his shrivelled yellow face, and his large dark eyes, that were as keen
+as any hawk's, and yet soft as a buck's. The whole room was hung with
+trophies of his numerous hunting expeditions, and he had some story
+about every one of them, if only he could be got to tell it. Generally
+he would not, for he was not very fond of narrating his own
+adventures, but to-night the port wine made him more communicative.
+
+"Ah, you brute!" he said, stopping beneath an unusually large skull of
+a lion, which was fixed just over the mantelpiece, beneath a long row
+of guns, its jaws distended to their utmost width. "Ah, you brute! you
+have given me a lot of trouble for the last dozen years, and will, I
+suppose to my dying day."
+
+"Tell us the yarn, Quatermain," said Good. "You have often promised to
+tell me, and you never have."
+
+"You had better not ask me to," he answered, "for it is a longish
+one."
+
+"All right," I said, "the evening is young, and there is some more
+port."
+
+Thus adjured, he filled his pipe from a jar of coarse-cut Boer tobacco
+that was always standing on the mantelpiece, and still walking up and
+down the room, began:
+
+"It was, I think, in the March of '69 that I was up in Sikukuni's
+country. It was just after old Sequati's time, and Sikukuni had got
+into power--I forget how. Anyway, I was there. I had heard that the
+Bapedi people had brought down an enormous quantity of ivory from the
+interior, and so I started with a waggon-load of goods, and came
+straight away from Middelburg to try and trade some of it. It was a
+risky thing to go into the country so early, on account of the fever;
+but I knew that there were one or two others after that lot of ivory,
+so I determined to have a try for it, and take my chance of fever. I
+had become so tough from continual knocking about that I did not set
+it down at much. Well, I got on all right for a while. It is a
+wonderfully beautiful piece of bush veldt, with great ranges of
+mountains running through it, and round granite koppies starting up
+here and there, looking out like sentinels over the rolling waste of
+bush. But it is very hot,--hot as a stew-pan,--and when I was there
+that March, which, of course, is autumn in this part of Africa, the
+whole place reeked of fever. Every morning, as I trekked along down by
+the Oliphant River, I used to creep from the waggon at dawn and look
+out. But there was no river to be seen--only a long line of billows of
+what looked like the finest cotton-wool tossed up lightly with a
+pitchfork. It was the fever mist. Out from among the scrub, too, came
+little spirals of vapour, as though there were hundreds of tiny fires
+alight in it--reek rising from thousands of tons of rotting
+vegetation. It was a beautiful place, but the beauty was the beauty of
+death; and all those lines and blots of vapour wrote one great word
+across the surface of the country, and that word was 'fever.'
+
+"It was a dreadful year of illness that. I came, I remember, to one
+little kraal of knobnoses, and went up to it to see if I could get
+some /maas/ (curdled butter-milk) and a few mealies. As I got near I
+was struck with the silence of the place. No children began to
+chatter, and no dogs barked. Nor could I see any native sheep or
+cattle. The place, though it had evidently been recently inhabited,
+was as still as the bush round it, and some guinea-fowl got up out of
+the prickly pear bushes right at the kraal gate. I remember that I
+hesitated a little before going in, there was such an air of
+desolation about the spot. Nature never looks desolate when man has
+not yet laid his hand upon her breast; she is only lovely. But when
+man has been, and has passed away, then she looks desolate.
+
+"Well, I passed into the kraal, and went up to the principal hut. In
+front of the hut was something with an old sheepskin /kaross/ (rug)
+thrown over it. I stooped down and drew off the rug, and then shrank
+back amazed, for under it was the body of a young woman recently dead.
+For a moment I thought of turning back, but my curiosity overcame me;
+so going past the dead woman, I went down on my hands and knees and
+crept into the hut. It was so dark that I could not see anything,
+though I could smell a great deal, so I lit a match. It was a
+'tandstickor' match, and burnt slowly and dimly, and as the light
+gradually increased I made out what I took to be a family of people,
+men, women, and children, fast asleep. Presently it burnt up brightly,
+and I saw that they too, five of them altogether, were quite dead. One
+was a baby. I dropped the match in a hurry, and was making my way out
+of the hut as hard as I could go, when I caught sight of two bright
+eyes staring out of a corner. Thinking it was a wild cat, or some such
+animal, I redoubled my haste, when suddenly a voice near the eyes
+began first to mutter, and then to send up a succession of awful
+yells. Hastily I lit another match, and perceived that the eyes
+belonged to an old woman, wrapped up in a greasy leather garment.
+Taking her by the arm, I dragged her out, for she could not, or would
+not, come by herself, and the stench was overpowering me. Such a sight
+as she was--a bag of bones, covered over with black, shrivelled
+parchment. The only white thing about her was her wool, and she seemed
+to be pretty well dead except for her eyes and her voice. She thought
+that I was a devil come to take her, and that is why she yelled so.
+Well, I got her down to the waggon, and gave her a 'tot' of Cape
+smoke, and then, as soon as it was ready, poured about a pint of beef-
+tea down her throat, made from the flesh of a blue vilder-beeste I had
+killed the day before, and after that she brightened up wonderfully.
+She could talk Zulu,--indeed, it turned out that she had run away from
+Zululand in T'Chaka's time,--and she told me that all the people whom
+I had seen had died of fever. When they had died the other inhabitants
+of the kraal had taken the cattle and gone away, leaving the poor old
+woman, who was helpless from age and infirmity, to perish of
+starvation or disease, as the case might be. She had been sitting
+there for three days among the bodies when I found her. I took her on
+to the next kraal, and gave the headman a blanket to look after her,
+promising him another if I found her well when I came back. I remember
+that he was much astonished at my parting with two blankets for the
+sake of such a worthless old creature. 'Why did I not leave her in the
+bush?' he asked. Those people carry the doctrine of the survival of
+the fittest to its extreme, you see.
+
+"It was the night after I had got rid of the old woman that I made my
+first acquaintance with my friend yonder," and he nodded toward the
+skull that seemed to be grinning down at us in the shadow of the wide
+mantel-shelf. "I had trekked from dawn till eleven o'clock,--a long
+trek,--but I wanted to get on; and then had turned the oxen out to
+graze, sending the voorlooper to look after them, meaning to inspan
+again about six o'clock, and trek with the moon till ten. Then I got
+into the waggon and had a good sleep till half-past two or so in the
+afternoon, when I rose and cooked some meat, and had my dinner,
+washing it down with a pannikin of black coffee; for it was difficult
+to get preserved milk in those days. Just as I had finished, and the
+driver, a man called Tom, was washing up the things, in comes the
+young scoundrel of a voorlooper driving one ox before him.
+
+"'Where are the other oxen?' I asked.
+
+"'Koos!' he said, 'Koos! (chief) the other oxen have gone away. I
+turned my back for a minute, and when I looked round again they were
+all gone except Kaptein, here, who was rubbing his back against a
+tree.'
+
+"'You mean that you have been asleep, and let them stray, you villain.
+I will rub your back against a stick,' I answered, feeling very angry,
+for it was not a pleasant prospect to be stuck up in that fever-trap
+for a week or so while we were hunting for the oxen. 'Off you go, and
+you too, Tom, and mind you don't come back till you have found them.
+They have trekked back along the Middelburg Road, and are a dozen
+miles off by now, I'll be bound. Now, no words; go, both of you.'
+
+"Tom, the driver, swore and caught the lad a hearty kick, which he
+richly deserved, and then, having tied old Kaptein up to the
+disselboom with a riem, they took their assegais and sticks, and
+started. I would have gone too, only I knew that somebody must look
+after the waggon, and I did not like to leave either of the boys with
+it at night. I was in a very bad temper, indeed, although I was pretty
+well used to these sort of occurrences, and soothed myself by taking a
+rifle and going to kill something. For a couple of hours I poked about
+without seeing anything that I could get a shot at, but at last, just
+as I was again within seventy yards of the waggon, I put up an old
+Impala ram from behind a mimosa-thorn. He ran straight for the waggon,
+and it was not till he was passing within a few feet of it that I
+could get a decent shot at him. Then I pulled, and caught him half-way
+down the spine; over he went, dead as a door-nail, and a pretty shot
+it was, though I ought not to say it. This little incident put me into
+rather a better temper, especially as the buck had rolled right
+against the after part of the waggon, so I had only to gut him, fix a
+riem round his legs, and haul him up. By the time I had done this the
+sun was down, and the full moon was up, and a beautiful moon it was.
+And then there came that wonderful hush which sometimes falls over the
+African bush in the early hours of the night. No beast was moving, and
+no bird called. Not a breath of air stirred the quiet trees, and the
+shadows did not even quiver, they only grew. It was very oppressive
+and very lonely, for there was not a sign of the cattle or the boys. I
+was quite thankful for the society of old Kaptein, who was lying down
+contentedly against the disselboom, chewing the cud with a good
+conscience.
+
+"Presently, however, Kaptein began to get restless. First he snorted,
+then he got up and snorted again. I could not make it out, so like a
+fool I got down off the waggon-box to have a look round, thinking it
+might be the lost oxen coming.
+
+"Next instant I regretted it, for all of a sudden I heard a roar and
+saw something yellow flash past me and light on poor Kaptein. Then
+came a bellow of agony from the ox, and a crunch as the lion put his
+teeth through the poor brute's neck, and I began to understand what
+had happened. My rifle was in the waggon, and my first thought was to
+get hold of it, and I turned and made a bolt for it. I got my foot on
+the wheel and flung my body forward on to the waggon, and there I
+stopped as if I were frozen, and no wonder, for as I was about to
+spring up I heard the lion behind me, and next second I felt the
+brute, ay, as plainly as I can feel this table. I felt him, I say,
+sniffing at my left leg that was hanging down.
+
+"My word! I did feel queer; I don't think that I ever felt so queer
+before. I dared not move for the life of me, and the odd thing was
+that I seemed to lose power over my leg, which developed an insane
+sort of inclination to kick out of its own mere motion--just as
+hysterical people want to laugh when they ought to be particularly
+solemn. Well, the lion sniffed and sniffed, beginning at my ankle and
+slowly nosing away up to my thigh. I thought that he was going to get
+hold then, but he did not. He only growled softly, and went back to
+the ox. Shifting my head a little I got a full view of him. He was
+about the biggest lion I ever saw,--and I have seen a great many, and
+he had a most tremendous black mane. What his teeth were like you can
+see--look there, pretty big ones, ain't they? Altogether he was a
+magnificent animal, and as I lay sprawling on the fore tongue of the
+waggon, it occurred to me that he would look uncommonly well in a
+cage. He stood there by the carcass of poor Kaptein, and deliberately
+disembowelled him as neatly as a butcher could have done. All this
+while I dared not move, for he kept lifting his head and keeping an
+eye on me as he licked his bloody chops. When he had cleaned Kaptein
+out he opened his mouth and roared, and I am not exaggerating when I
+say that the sound shook the waggon. Instantly there came back an
+answering roar.
+
+"'Heavens!' I thought, 'there is his mate.'
+
+"Hardly was the thought out of my head when I caught sight in the
+moonlight of the lioness bounding along through the long grass, and
+after her a couple of cubs about the size of mastiffs. She stopped
+within a few feet of my head, and stood, and waved her tail, and fixed
+me with her glowing yellow eyes; but just as I thought that it was all
+over she turned and began to feed on Kaptein, and so did the cubs.
+There were the four of them within eight feet of me, growling and
+quarrelling, rending and tearing, and crunching poor Kaptein's bones;
+and there I lay shaking with terror, and the cold perspiration pouring
+out of me, feeling like another Daniel come to judgment in a new sense
+of the phrase. Presently the cubs had eaten their fill, and began to
+get restless. One went round to the back of the waggon and pulled at
+the Impala buck that hung there, and the other came round my way and
+commenced the sniffing game at my leg. Indeed, he did more than that,
+for, my trouser being hitched up a little, he began to lick the bare
+skin with his rough tongue. The more he licked the more he liked it,
+to judge from his increased vigour and the loud purring noise he made.
+Then I knew that the end had come, for in another second his file-like
+tongue would have rasped through the skin of my leg--which was luckily
+pretty tough--and have drawn the blood, and then there would be no
+chance for me. So I just lay there and thought of my sins, and prayed
+to the Almighty, and thought that, after all, life was a very
+enjoyable thing.
+
+"And then all of a sudden I heard a crashing of bushes and the
+shouting and whistling of men, and there were the two boys coming back
+with the cattle, which they had found trekking along all together. The
+lions lifted their heads and listened, then without a sound bounded
+off--and I fainted.
+
+"The lions came back no more that night, and by the next morning my
+nerves had got pretty straight again; but I was full of wrath when I
+thought of all that I had gone through at the hands, or rather noses,
+of those four lions, and of the fate of my after-ox Kaptein. He was a
+splendid ox, and I was very fond of him. So wroth was I that, like a
+fool, I determined to attack the whole family of them. It was worthy
+of a greenhorn out on his first hunting-trip; but I did it
+nevertheless. Accordingly after breakfast, having rubbed some oil upon
+my leg, which was very sore from the cub's tongue, I took the driver,
+Tom, who did not half like the job, and having armed myself with an
+ordinary double No. 12 smooth-bore, the first breech-loader I ever
+had, I started. I took the smooth-bore because it shot a bullet very
+well; and my experience has been that a round ball from a smooth-bore
+is quite as effective against a lion as an express bullet. The lion is
+soft, and not a difficult animal to finish if you hit him anywhere in
+the body. A buck takes far more killing.
+
+"Well, I started, and the first thing I set to work to do was to try
+to make out whereabouts the brutes lay up for the day. About three
+hundred yards from the waggon was the crest of a rise covered with
+single mimosa-trees, dotted about in a park-like fashion, and beyond
+this was a stretch of open plain running down to a dry pan, or water-
+hole, which covered about an acre of ground, and was densely clothed
+with reeds, now in the sear and yellow leaf. From the farther edge of
+this pan the ground sloped up again to a great cleft, or nullah, which
+had been cut out by the action of the water, and was pretty thickly
+sprinkled with bush, among which grew some large trees, I forget of
+what sort.
+
+"It at once struck me that the dry pan would be a likely place to find
+my friends in, as there is nothing a lion is fonder of than lying up
+in reeds, through which he can see things without being seen himself.
+Accordingly thither I went and prospected. Before I had got half-way
+round the pan I found the remains of a blue vilder-beeste that had
+evidently been killed within the last three or four days and partially
+devoured by lions; and from other indications about I was soon assured
+that if the family were not in the pan that day they spent a good deal
+of their spare time there. But if there, the question was how to get
+them out; for it was clearly impossible to think of going in after
+them unless one was quite determined to commit suicide. Now there was
+a strong wind blowing from the direction of the waggon, across the
+reedy pan toward the bush-clad kloof or donga, and this first gave me
+the idea of firing the reeds, which, as I think I told you, were
+pretty dry. Accordingly Tom took some matches and began starting
+little fires to the left, and I did the same to the right. But the
+reeds were still green at the bottom, and we should never have got
+them well alight had it not been for the wind, which grew stronger and
+stronger as the sun climbed higher, and forced the fire into them. At
+last, after half an hour's trouble, the flames got a hold, and began
+to spread out like a fan, whereupon I went round to the farther side
+of the pan to wait for the lions, standing well out in the open, as we
+stood at the copse to-day where you shot the woodcock. It was a rather
+risky thing to do, but I used to be so sure of my shooting in those
+days that I did not so much mind the risk. Scarcely had I got round
+when I heard the reeds parting before the onward rush of some animal.
+'Now for it,' said I. On it came. I could see that it was yellow, and
+prepared for action, when instead of a lion out bounded a beautiful
+rietbok which had been lying in the shelter of the pan. It must, by
+the way, have been a rietbok of a peculiarly confiding nature to lay
+itself down with the lion, like the lamb of prophecy, but I suppose
+the reeds were thick, and that it kept a long way off.
+
+"Well, I let the rietbok go, and it went like the wind, and kept my
+eyes fixed upon the reeds. The fire was burning like a furnace now;
+the flames crackling and roaring as they bit into the reeds, sending
+spouts of fire twenty feet and more into the air, and making the hot
+air dance above it in a way that was perfectly dazzling. But the reeds
+were still half green, and created an enormous quantity of smoke,
+which came rolling toward me like a curtain, lying very low on account
+of the wind. Presently, above the crackling of the fire, I heard a
+startled roar, then another and another. So the lions were at home.
+
+"I was beginning to get excited now, for, as you fellows know, there
+is nothing in experience to warm up your nerves like a lion at close
+quarters, unless it is a wounded buffalo; and I got still more so when
+I made out through the smoke that the lions were all moving about on
+the extreme edge of the reeds. Occasionally they would pop their heads
+out like rabbits from a burrow, and then, catching sight of me
+standing about fifty yards out, draw them back again. I knew that it
+must be getting pretty warm behind them, and that they could not keep
+the game up for long; and I was not mistaken, for suddenly all four of
+them broke cover together, the old black-maned lion leading by a few
+yards. I never saw a more splendid sight in all my hunting experience
+than those four lions bounding across the veldt, overshadowed by the
+dense pall of smoke and backed by the fiery furnace of the burning
+reeds.
+
+"I reckoned that they would pass, on their road to the bushy kloof,
+within about five and twenty yards of me; so, taking a long breath, I
+got my gun well on to the lion's shoulder--the black-maned one--so as
+to allow for an inch or two of motion, and catch him through the
+heart. I was on, dead on, and my finger was just beginning to tighten
+on the trigger, when suddenly I went blind--a bit of reed-ash had
+drifted into my right eye. I danced and rubbed, and succeeded in
+clearing it more or less just in time to see the tail of the last lion
+vanishing round the bushes up the kloof.
+
+"If ever a man was mad I was that man. It was too bad; and such a shot
+in the open, too! However, I was not going to be beaten, so I just
+turned and marched for the kloof. Tom, the driver, begged and implored
+me not to go; but though as a general rule I never pretend to be very
+brave (which I am not), I was determined that I would either kill
+those lions or they should kill me. So I told Tom that he need not
+come unless he liked, but I was going; and being a plucky fellow, a
+Swazi by birth, he shrugged his shoulders, muttered that I was mad or
+bewitched, and followed doggedly in my tracks.
+
+"We soon got to the kloof, which was about three hundred yards in
+length and but sparsely wooded, and then the real fun began. There
+might be a lion behind every bush--there certainly were four lions
+somewhere; the delicate question was, where. I peeped and poked and
+looked in every possible direction, with my heart in my mouth, and was
+at last rewarded by catching a glimpse of something yellow moving
+behind a bush. At the same moment, from another bush opposite me out
+burst one of the cubs and galloped back toward the burned-out pan. I
+whipped round and let drive a snap-shot that tipped him head over
+heels, breaking his back within two inches of the root of the tail,
+and there he lay helpless but glaring. Tom afterward killed him with
+his assegai. I opened the breech of the gun and hurriedly pulled out
+the old case, which, to judge from what ensued, must, I suppose, have
+burst and left a portion of its fabric sticking to the barrel. At any
+rate, when I tried to get in the new case it would only enter half-
+way; and--would you believe it?--this was the moment that the lioness,
+attracted no doubt by the outcry of her cub, chose to put in an
+appearance. There she stood, twenty paces or so from me, lashing her
+tail and looking just as wicked as it is possible to conceive. Slowly
+I stepped backward, trying to push in the new case, and as I did so
+she moved on in little runs, dropping down after each run. The danger
+was imminent, and the case would not go in. At the moment I oddly
+enough thought of the cartridge-maker, whose name I will not mention,
+and earnestly hoped that if the lion got me some condign punishment
+would overtake him. It would not go in, so I tried to pull it out. It
+would not come out either, and my gun was useless if I could not shut
+it to use the other barrel. I might as well have had no gun. Meanwhile
+I was walking backward, keeping my eye on the lioness, who was
+creeping forward on her belly without a sound, but lashing her tail
+and keeping her eye on me; and in it I saw that she was coming in a
+few seconds more. I dashed my wrist and the palm of my hand against
+the brass rim of the cartridge till the blood poured from them--look,
+there are the scars of it to this day!"
+
+Here Quatermain held up his right hand to the light and showed us four
+or five white cicatrices just where the wrist is set into the hand.
+
+"But it was not of the slightest use," he went on; "the cartridge
+would not move. I only hope that no other man will ever be put in such
+an awful position. The lioness gathered herself together, and I gave
+myself up for lost, when suddenly Tom shouted out from somewhere in my
+rear:
+
+"'You are walking on to the wounded cub; turn to the right.'
+
+"I had the sense, dazed as I was, to take the hint, and slewing round
+at right angles, but still keeping my eyes on the lioness, I continued
+my backward walk.
+
+"To my intense relief, with a low growl she straightened herself,
+turned, and bounded off farther up the kloof.
+
+"'Come on, inkoos,' said Tom, 'let's get back to the waggon.'
+
+"'All right, Tom,' I answered. 'I will when I have killed those three
+other lions,' for by this time I was bent on shooting them as I never
+remember being bent on anything before or since. 'You can go if you
+like, or you can get up a tree.'
+
+"He considered the position a little, and then he very wisely got up a
+tree. I wish that I had done the same.
+
+"Meanwhile I had found my knife, which had an extractor in it, and
+succeeded after some difficulty in hauling out the case which had so
+nearly been the cause of my death, and removing the obstruction in the
+barrel. It was very little thicker than a postage-stamp; certainly not
+thicker than a piece of writing-paper. This done, I loaded the gun,
+bound a handkerchief round my wrist and hand to staunch the flowing of
+the blood, and started on again.
+
+"I had noticed that the lioness went into a thick green bush, or
+rather cluster of bushes, growing near the water; for there was a
+little stream running down the kloof, about fifty yards higher up and
+for this I made. When I got there, however, I could see nothing, so I
+took up a big stone and threw it into the bushes. I believe that it
+hit the other cub, for out it came with a rush, giving me a broadside
+shot, of which I promptly availed myself, knocking it over dead. Out,
+too, came the lioness like a flash of light, but quick as she went I
+managed to put the other bullet into her ribs, so that she rolled
+right over three times like a shot rabbit. I instantly got two more
+cartridges into the gun, and as I did so the lioness rose again and
+came crawling toward me on her fore paws, roaring and groaning, and
+with such an expression of diabolical fury on her countenance as I
+have not often seen. I shot her again through the chest, and she fell
+over on to her side quite dead.
+
+"That was the first and last time that I ever killed a brace of lions
+right and left, and, what is more, I never heard of anybody else doing
+it. Naturally I was considerably pleased with myself, and having again
+loaded up, I went on to look for the black-maned beauty who had killed
+Kaptein. Slowly, and with the greatest care, I proceeded up the kloof,
+searching every bush and tuft of grass as I went. It was wonderfully
+exciting work, for I never was sure from one moment to another but
+that he would be on me. I took comfort, however, from the reflection
+that a lion rarely attacks a man,--rarely, I say; sometimes he does,
+as you will see,--unless he is cornered or wounded. I must have been
+nearly an hour hunting after that lion. Once I thought I saw something
+move in a clump of tambouki grass, but I could not be sure, and when I
+trod out the grass I could not find him.
+
+"At last I worked up to the head of the kloof, which made a cul-de-
+sac. It was formed of a wall of rock about fifty feet high. Down this
+rock trickled a little waterfall, and in front of it, some seventy
+feet from its face, was a great piled-up mass of boulders, in the
+crevices and on the top of which grew ferns, grasses, and stunted
+bushes. This mass was about twenty-five feet high. The sides of the
+kloof here were also very steep. Well, I came to the top of the nullah
+and looked all round. No signs of the lion. Evidently I had either
+overlooked him farther down or he had escaped right away. It was very
+vexatious; but still three lions were not a bad bag for one gun before
+dinner, and I was fain to be content. Accordingly I departed back
+again, making my way round the isolated pillar of boulders, beginning
+to feel, as I did so, that I was pretty well done up with excitement
+and fatigue, and should be more so before I had skinned those three
+lions. When I had got, as nearly as I could judge, about eighteen
+yards past the pillar or mass of boulders, I turned to have another
+look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I could see nothing at all.
+
+"Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top
+of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against
+the rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He had been crouching
+there, and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his
+tail, just like a living reproduction of the animal on the gateway of
+Northumberland House that I have seen a picture of. But he did not
+stand long. Before I could fire--before I could do more than get the
+gun to my shoulder--he sprang straight up and out from the rock, and
+driven by the impetus of that one mighty bound came hurtling through
+the air toward me.
+
+"Heavens! how grand he looked, and how awful! High into the air he
+flew, describing a great arch. Just as he touched the highest point of
+his spring I fired. I did not dare to wait, for I saw that he would
+clear the whole space and land right upon me. Without a sight, almost
+without aim, I fired, as one would fire a snap-shot at a snipe. The
+bullet told, for I distinctly heard its thud above the rushing sound
+caused by the passage of the lion through the air. Next second I was
+swept to the ground (luckily I fell into a low, creeper-clad bush,
+which broke the shock), and the lion was on the top of me, and the
+next those great white teeth of his had met in my thigh--I heard them
+grate against the bone. I yelled out in agony, for I did not feel in
+the least benumbed and happy, like Dr. Livingstone,--whom, by the way,
+I knew very well,--and gave myself up for dead. But suddenly, at that
+moment, the lion's grip on my thigh loosened, and he stood over me,
+swaying to and fro, his huge mouth, from which the blood was gushing,
+wide opened. Then he roared, and the sound shook the rocks.
+
+"To and fro he swung, and then the great head dropped on me, knocking
+all the breath from my body, and he was dead. My bullet had entered in
+the centre of his chest and passed out on the right side of the spine
+about half way down the back.
+
+"The pain of my wound kept me from fainting, and as soon as I got my
+breath I managed to drag myself from under him. Thank heavens, his
+great teeth had not crushed my thigh-bone; but I was losing a great
+deal of blood, and had it not been for the timely arrival of Tom, with
+whose aid I got the handkerchief from my wrist and tied it round my
+leg, twisting it tight with a stick, I think that I should have bled
+to death.
+
+"Well, it was a just reward for my folly in trying to tackle a family
+of lions single-handed. The odds were too long. I have been lame ever
+since, and shall be to my dying day; in the month of March the wound
+always troubles me a great deal, and every three years it breaks out
+raw. I need scarcely add that I never traded the lot of ivory at
+Sikukuni's. Another man got it--a German--and made five hundred pounds
+out of it after paying expenses. I spent the next month on the broad
+of my back, and was a cripple for six months after that. And now I've
+told you the yarn, so I will have a drop of Hollands and go to bed."
+
+
+
+KING BEMBA'S POINT
+A WEST AFRICAN STORY
+
+BY
+
+J. LANDERS
+
+
+
+We were for the most part a queer lot out on that desolate southwest
+African coast, in charge of the various trading stations that were
+scattered along the coast, from the Gaboon River, past the mouth of
+the mighty Congo, to the Portuguese city of St. Paul de Loanda. A
+mixture of all sorts, especially bad sorts: broken-down clerks, men
+who could not succeed anywhere else, sailors, youths, and some whose
+characters would not have borne any investigation; and we very nearly
+all drank hard, and those who didn't drink hard took more than was
+good for them.
+
+I don't know exactly what induced me to go out there. I was young for
+one thing, the country was unknown, the berth was vacant, and the
+conditions of it easy.
+
+Imagine a high rocky point or headland, stretching out sideways into
+the sea, and at its base a small river winding into a country that was
+seemingly a blank in regard to inhabitants or cultivation; a land
+continuing for miles and miles, as far as the eye could see, one
+expanse of long yellow grass, dotted here and there with groups of
+bastard palms. In front of the headland rolled the lonely South
+Atlantic; and, as if such conditions were not dispiriting enough to
+existence upon the Point, there was yet another feature which at times
+gave the place a still more ghastly look. A long way off the shore,
+the heaving surface of the ocean began, in anything like bad weather,
+to break upon the shoals of the coast. Viewed from the top of the
+rock, the sea at such times looked, for at least two miles out, as if
+it were scored over with lines of white foam; but lower down, near the
+beach, each roller could be distinctly seen, and each roller had a
+curve of many feet, and was an enormous mass of water that hurled
+itself shoreward until it curled and broke.
+
+When I first arrived on the Point there was, I may say, only one house
+upon it, and that belonged to Messrs. Flint Brothers, of Liverpool. It
+was occupied by one solitary man named Jackson; he had had an
+assistant, but the assistant had died of fever, and I was sent to
+replace him. Jackson was a man of fifty at least, who had been a
+sailor before he had become an African trader. His face bore testimony
+to the winds and weather it had encountered, and wore habitually a
+grave, if not melancholy, expression. He was rough but kind to me, and
+though strict was just, which was no common feature in an old African
+hand to one who had just arrived on the coast.
+
+He kept the factory--we called all houses on the coast factories--as
+neat and clean as if it had been a ship. He had the floor of the
+portion we dwelt in holystoned every week; and numberless little racks
+and shelves were fitted up all over the house. The outside walls
+glittered with paint, and the yard was swept clean every morning; and
+every Sunday, at eight o'clock and sunset, the ensign was hoisted and
+lowered, and an old cannon fired at the word of command. Order and
+rule were with Jackson observed from habit, and were strictly enforced
+by him on all the natives employed in the factory.
+
+Although I have said the country looked as if uninhabited, there were
+numerous villages hidden away in the long grass and brushwood,
+invisible at a distance, being huts of thatch or mud, and not so high
+as the grass among which they were placed. From these villages came
+most of our servants, and also the middlemen, who acted as brokers
+between us, the white men, and the negroes who brought ivory and gum
+and india-rubber from the far interior for sale. Our trade was
+principally in ivory, and when an unusually large number of elephants'
+tusks arrived upon the Point for sale, it would be crowded with
+Bushmen, strange and uncouth, and hideously ugly, and armed, and then
+we would be very busy; for sometimes as many as two hundred tusks
+would be brought to us at the same time, and each of these had to be
+bargained for and paid for by exchange of cotton cloths, guns, knives,
+powder, and a host of small wares.
+
+For some time after my arrival our factory, along with the others on
+the coast belonging to Messrs. Flint Brothers, was very well supplied
+by them with goods for the trade; but by degrees their shipments
+became less frequent, and small when they did come. In spite of
+repeated letters we could gain no reason from the firm for this fact,
+nor could the other factories, and gradually we found ourselves with
+an empty storehouse, and nearly all our goods gone. Then followed a
+weary interval, during which we had nothing whatever to do, and day
+succeeded day through the long hot season. It was now that I began to
+feel that Jackson had become of late more silent and reserved with me
+than ever he had been. I noticed, too, that he had contracted a habit
+of wandering out to the extreme end of the Point, where he would sit
+for hours gazing upon the ocean before him. In addition to this, he
+grew morose and uncertain in his temper toward the natives, and
+sometimes he would fall asleep in the evenings on a sofa, and talk to
+himself at such a rate while asleep that I would grow frightened and
+wake him, when he would stare about him for a little until he gathered
+consciousness, and then he would stagger off to bed to fall asleep
+again almost immediately. Also, his hands trembled much, and he began
+to lose flesh. All this troubled me, for his own sake as well as my
+own, and I resolved to ask him to see the doctor of the next mail-
+steamer that came. With this idea I went one day to the end of the
+Point, and found him in his usual attitude, seated on the long grass,
+looking seaward. He did not hear me approach, and when I spoke he
+started to his feet, and demanded fiercely why I disturbed him. I
+replied, as mildly as I could, for I was rather afraid of the
+glittering look that was in his eyes, that I wished to ask him if he
+did not feel ill.
+
+He regarded me with a steady but softened glance for a little, and
+then said:
+
+"My lad, I thank you for your trouble; but I want no doctor. Do you
+think I'm looking ill?"
+
+"Indeed you are," I answered, "ill and thin; and, do you know, I hear
+you talk to yourself in your sleep nearly every night."
+
+"What do I say?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"That I cannot tell," I replied. "It is all rambling talk; the same
+things over and over again, and nearly all about one person--Lucy."
+
+"Boy!" he cried out, as if in pain, or as if something had touched him
+to the quick, "sit you down, and I'll tell you why I think of her--she
+was my wife."
+
+He moved nearer to the edge of the cliff, and we sat down, almost over
+the restless sea beneath us.
+
+"She lives in my memory," he continued, speaking more to himself than
+to me, and looking far out to the horizon, beneath which the setting
+sun had begun to sink, "in spite of all I can do or think of to make
+her appear base in my eyes. For she left me to go with another man--a
+scoundrel. This was how it was," he added, quickly: "I married her,
+and thought her as pure as a flower; but I could not take her to sea
+with me because I was only the mate of a vessel, so I left her among
+her own friends, in the village where she was born. In a little
+cottage by herself I settled her, comfortable and happy as I thought.
+God! how she hung round my neck and sobbed when I went away the first
+time! and yet--yet--within a year she left me." And he stopped for
+several minutes, resting his head upon his hands. "At first I could
+get no trace of her," he resumed. "Her friends knew nothing more of
+her than that she had left the village suddenly. Gradually I found out
+the name of the scoundrel who had seduced her away. He had bribed her
+friends so that they were silent; but I overbribed them with the last
+money I had, and I followed him and my wife on foot. I never found
+them, nor did I ever know why she had deserted me for him. If I had
+only known the reason; if I could have been told of my fault; if she
+had only written to say that she was tired of me; that I was too old,
+too rough for her soft ways,--I think I could have borne the heavy
+stroke the villain had dealt me better. The end of my search was that
+I dropped down in the streets of Liverpool, whither I thought I had
+tracked them, and was carried to the hospital with brain-fever upon
+me. Two months afterward I came out cured, and the sense of my loss
+was deadened within me, so that I could go to sea again, which I did,
+before the mast, under the name of Jackson, in a bark that traded to
+this coast here." And the old sailor rose to his feet and turned
+abruptly away, leaving me sitting alone.
+
+I saw that he did not wish to be followed, so I stayed where I was and
+watched the gray twilight creep over the face of the sea, and the
+night quickly succeed to it. Not a cloud had been in the sky all day
+long, and as the darkness increased the stars came out, until the
+whole heavens were studded with glittering gems.
+
+Suddenly, low down, close to the sea, a point of light flickered and
+disappeared, shone again for a moment, wavered and went out, only to
+reappear and shine steadily. "A steamer's masthead light," I thought,
+and ran to the house to give the news; but Jackson had already seen
+the light, and pronounced that she had anchored until the morning. At
+daybreak there she was, dipping her sides to the swell of the sea as
+it rolled beneath her. It was my duty to go off to her in one of the
+surf-boats belonging to the factory; and so I scrambled down the cliff
+to the little strip of smooth beach that served us for a landing-
+place.
+
+When I arrived there I found that the white-crested breakers were
+heavier than I had thought they would be. However, there was the boat
+lying on the beach with its prow toward the waves, and round it were
+the boat-boys with their loincloths girded, ready to start; so I
+clambered into the stern, or rather--for the boat was shaped alike at
+stem and stern--the end from which the steersman, or /patrao/, used
+his long oar. With a shout the boys laid hold of the sides of the
+boat, and the next moment it was dancing on the spent waves next to
+the beach. The patrao kept its head steady, and the boys jumped in and
+seized the oars, and began pulling with a will, standing up to their
+stroke. Slowly the heavy craft gathered way, and approached a dark and
+unbroken roller that hastened toward the beach. Then the patrao
+shouted to the crew, and they lay on their oars, and the wave with a
+roar burst right in front of the boat, sending the spray of its crest
+high above our heads.
+
+"/Rema! rema forca!/" ("Row strongly!") now shouted the patrao,
+speaking Portuguese, as mostly all African coast natives do; and the
+crew gave way. The next roller we had to meet in its strength; and
+save for the steady force of the patrao's oar, I believe it would have
+tossed us aside and we would have been swept under its curving wall of
+water. As it was, the good boat gave a mighty bound as it felt its
+force, and its stem pitched high into the air as it slid down its
+broad back into the deep.
+
+Another and yet another wave were passed, and we could now see them
+breaking behind us, shutting out the beach from view. Then the last
+roller was overcome, and there was nothing but the long heave of the
+deep sea to contend against. Presently we arrived at the steamer,
+whose side towered above us--an iron wall.
+
+A shout came to me, pitching and lurching with the boat far below,
+"Come on board at once." But to come on board was only to be done by
+watching a chance as the boat rose on the top of a roller. Taking such
+a one, I seized the side-ropes, swung a moment in mid-air, and the
+next was on the streamer's clean white deck. Before me stood a tall
+man with black hair and whiskers and dark piercing eyes, who asked me
+if I was the agent for Flint Brothers. I answered that the agent was
+on shore, and that I was his assistant. Whereupon he informed me that
+he had been appointed by the firm to liquidate all their stations and
+businesses on the coast, and "he would be obliged by my getting his
+luggage into the boat." This was said in a peremptory sort of way, as
+if he had spoken to a servant; and very much against the grain I
+obeyed his orders.
+
+That the man was new to the coast was evident, and my consolation was
+that he would be very soon sick of it and pretty well frightened
+before he even got on shore, for the weather was freshening rapidly, a
+fact of which he appeared to take no heed. Not so the boat-boys, who
+were anxious to be off. At last we started, and I soon had my revenge.
+As we drew near the shore the rollers became higher and higher, and I
+perceived that my gentleman clutched the gunwale of the boat very
+tightly, and when the first wave that showed signs of breaking
+overtook us, he grew very white in the face until it had passed.
+
+The next one or two breakers were small, much to his relief I could
+see, though he said nothing. Before he had well recovered his
+equanimity, however, a tremendous wave approached us somewhat
+suddenly. Appalled by its threatening aspect, he sprang from his seat
+and seized the arm of the patrao, who roughly shook him off.
+
+"My God!" he cried, "we are swamped!" and for the moment it really
+looked like it; but the patrao, with a dexterous sweep of his long
+oar, turned the boat's head toward the roller. It broke just as it
+reached us, and gave us the benefit of its crest, which came in over
+the topsides of the boat as it passed by, and deluged every one of us.
+
+I laughed, although it was no laughing matter, at the plight the
+liquidator was now in. He was changed in a moment from the spruce and
+natty personage into a miserable and draggled being. From every part
+of him the salt water was streaming, and the curl was completely taken
+out of his whiskers. He could not speak from terror, which the boat-
+boys soon saw, for none are quicker than negroes to detect signs of
+fear in those whom they are accustomed to consider superior to
+themselves. Familiar with the surf, and full of mischievous fun, they
+began to shout and gesticulate with the settled purpose of making
+matters appear worse than they were, and of enjoying the white man's
+discomfiture,--all but the patrao, who was an old hand, and on whom
+depended the safety of us all. He kept a steady lookout seaward, and
+stood upright and firm, grasping his oar with both hands. With him it
+was a point of honour to bring the white men intrusted to his care
+safely through the surf.
+
+We waited for more than half an hour, bow on, meeting each roller as
+it came to us; and by the end of that time the unfortunate liquidator
+had evidently given up all hope of ever reaching the shore. Luckily,
+the worst was soon to pass. After one last tremendous wave there was a
+lull for a few moments, and the patrao, who had watched for such a
+chance, swiftly turned the boat round, and giving the word to the
+crew, they pulled lustily toward the shore. In a few minutes we were
+again in safety. The boat grounded on the beach, the oars were tossed
+into the sea; the crew sprang overboard; some of them seized the new
+arrival; I clambered on the back of the patrao; a crowd of negroes,
+who had been waiting on the beach, laid hold of the tow-rope of the
+boat, and it and we were landed simultaneously on the dry sand.
+
+Once on shore Mr. Bransome, for that was the new man's name, rapidly
+recovered his presence of mind and manner, and, by way of covering his
+past confusion, remarked that he supposed the surf was seldom so bad
+as it then was. I replied in an offhand way, meaning to make fun of
+him, that what he had passed through was nothing, and appealed to the
+patrao to confirm what I had said. That negro, seeing the joke,
+grinned all over his black face; and Mr. Bransome, perceiving that he
+was being laughed at, snatched a good-sized stick from a native
+standing near, and struck the patrao repeatedly over the back.
+
+In vain Sooka, for that was the patrao's name, protested, and demanded
+to know what wrong thing he had done. The agent was furious, and
+showered his blows upon the black. Equally in vain I shouted that
+Sooka had done well by us, and that he, Mr. Bransome, was making an
+enemy of a man who would have him now and then in his power. At length
+Sooka took to his heels, and sure enough, when he had got a little way
+off, he began to threaten vengeance for what he had received. I
+sympathised with him, for I knew what a loss to his dignity it was to
+be beaten without cause before his fellows, and I feared that Mr.
+Bransome would indeed be sorry, sooner or later, for what he had done.
+
+I now suggested to him, by way of diverting his thoughts from poor
+Sooka, that standing on the beach in wet clothes was the very way to
+catch the coast-fever straight off, and he instantly suffered himself
+to be carried up the factory. There Jackson received him in a sort of
+"who on earth are you?" manner; and Mr. Bransome, clearing his throat,
+announced himself and his authority, adding that he intended to make
+the factory a point of departure to all the others on the coast; then,
+very abruptly, he requested Jackson to prepare quarters for him
+without delay.
+
+The change that came over Jackson's face as he learned the quality of
+the stranger and his requests was great. The old salt, who had been
+king of his house and of the Point for so long a time, had evidently
+never even thought of the probability of such an intrusion as was now
+presented to him, and he was amazed at what he considered to be the
+unwarrantable assurance of the stranger. However, he recovered himself
+smartly, and asked the new man if he had any written credentials.
+
+"Certainly," replied he, pulling out a document all wet with salt
+water. "Here is a letter from Messrs. Flint Brothers, of which, no
+doubt, you will have a copy in your mail-bag."
+
+Jackson took the letter and opened it, and seemed to read it slowly to
+himself. All at once he started, looked at the new agent, advanced a
+step or two toward him, muttering, "Bransome, Bransome," then stopped
+and asked him in a strange constrained voice, "Is /your/ name
+Bransome?"
+
+"Yes," replied the latter, astonished at the old man's question.
+
+"I knew a Bransome once," said Jackson, steadily, "and he was a
+scoundrel."
+
+For a moment the two men looked at each other--Jackson with a gleam of
+hatred in his eyes, while Bransome had a curiously frightened
+expression on his face, which blanched slightly. But he quickly
+resumed his composure and peremptory way, and said, "Show me a room; I
+must get these wet things off me."
+
+As, however, he addressed himself this time to me rather than to
+Jackson,--who, indeed, regarded him no longer, but stood with the
+letter loose in his hand, looking at the floor of the room, as if in
+deep meditation,--I showed him into my own room, where I ordered his
+trunks to be brought. These, of course, were wet; but he found some
+things in the middle of them that were not more than slightly damp,
+and with the help of a pair of old canvas trousers of mine he managed
+to make his appearance at dinner-time.
+
+Jackson was not at the meal. He had left the house shortly after his
+interview with the new agent, and had, I fancied, gone on one of his
+solitary rambles. At any rate he did not return until late that night.
+
+I thought Mr. Bransome seemed to be somewhat relieved when he saw that
+the old man was not coming; and he became more affable than I had
+expected him to be, and relinquished his arrogant style altogether
+when he began to question me about Jackson--who he was? what had he
+been? how long he had lived on the coast? To all which questions I
+returned cautious answers, remembering that I was under a promise to
+the old man not to repeat his story.
+
+By the next morning, to my surprise, Jackson appeared to have become
+reconciled to the fact that he had been superseded by a man who knew
+nothing of the coast, and of his own accord he offered to tell Mr.
+Bransome the clues to the letter-locks on the doors of the various
+store-rooms; for we on the coast used none but letter-locks, which are
+locks that do not require a key to open them. But Mr. Bransome
+expressed, most politely, a wish that Jackson should consider himself
+still in charge of the factory, at any rate until the whole estate of
+the unfortunate Flint Brothers could be wound up; and he trusted that
+his presence would make no difference to him.
+
+This was a change, on the part of both men, from the manners of the
+previous day; and yet I could not help thinking that each but ill
+concealed his aversion to the other.
+
+Months now slipped away, and Mr. Bransome was occupied in going up and
+down the coast in a little steamer, shutting up factory after factory,
+transferring their goods to ours, and getting himself much disliked by
+all the Europeans under him, and hated by the natives, especially by
+the boat-boys, who were a race or tribe by themselves, coming from one
+particular part of the coast. He had, of course, been obliged to order
+the dismissal of many of them, and this was one reason why they hated
+him; but the chief cause was his treatment of Sooka, the patrao. That
+man never forgave Mr. Bransome for beating him so unjustly; and the
+news of the deed had travelled very quickly, as news does in savage
+countries, so that I think nearly all of Sooka's countrymen knew of
+the act and resented it.
+
+Mr. Bransome was quite unaware of the antipathy he had thus created
+toward himself, except so far as Sooka was concerned; and him he never
+employed when he had to go off to vessels or land from them, but
+always went in the other boat belonging to the factory, which was
+steered by a much younger negro. In addition to humbling Sooka in this
+way, Bransome took the opportunity of disgracing him whenever he could
+do so. Therefore, one day when two pieces of cloth from the cargo-room
+were found in the boatmen's huts, it was no surprise to me that Sooka
+was at once fastened upon by Mr. Bransome as the thief who had stolen
+them, and that he was tied to the flogging-post in the middle of the
+yard, and sentenced to receive fifty lashes with the cat that was kept
+for such a purpose, and all without any inquiry being made. In vain
+did the unfortunate man protest his innocence. A swarthy Kroot-boy
+from Cape Coast laid the cat on his brown shoulders right willingly,
+for he also was an enemy of Sooka's; and in a few minutes the poor
+fellow's flesh was cut and scored as if by a knife.
+
+After the flogging was over Mr. Bransome amused himself by getting out
+his rifle and firing fancy shots at Sooka, still tied to the post;
+that is, he tried to put the bullets as close to the poor wretch as he
+could without actually wounding him. To a negro, with his dread of
+firearms, this was little short of absolute torture, and at each
+discharge Sooka writhed and crouched as close to the ground as he
+could, while his wide-opened eyes and mouth, and face of almost a
+slate colour, showed how terribly frightened he was. To Mr. Bransome
+it appeared to be fine sport, for he fired at least twenty shots at
+the man before he shouldered his rifle and went indoors. Jackson said
+nothing to this stupid exhibition of temper, but as soon as it was
+over he had Sooka released; and I knew he attended to his wounds
+himself, and poured friar's balsam into them, and covered his back
+with a soft shirt--for all which, no doubt, the negro was afterward
+grateful. Whether Mr. Bransome got to know of this, and was offended
+at it, I do not know, but shortly afterward he ceased to live with us.
+
+There was between the factory and the sea, and a little to the right
+of the former, a small wooden cottage which had been allowed to fall
+into a dilapidated state from want of some one to live in it. This Mr.
+Bransome gave orders to the native carpenters to repair and make
+weather-tight; and when they had done so, he caused a quantity of
+furniture to be brought from St. Paul de Loanda and placed within in
+it. Then he transferred himself and his baggage to the cottage.
+
+Jackson displayed complete indifference to this change on the part of
+the agent. In fact, there had been, ever since the arrival of the
+latter upon the Point, and in spite of apparent friendliness, a
+perceptible breach, widening daily, between the two men. As to the
+reason of this I had my own suspicions, for I had made the discovery
+that Jackson had for some time past been drinking very heavily.
+
+In addition to the brandy which we white men had for our own use, I
+had, to my horror, found out that he was secretly drinking the coarse
+and fiery rum that was sold to the natives; and as I remembered the
+mutterings and moanings that had formerly alarmed me, I wondered that
+I had not guessed the cause of them at the time; but until the arrival
+of Mr. Bransome, Jackson had always kept charge of the spirits
+himself, and he was such a secret old fellow that there was no knowing
+what he had then taken. Now that I was aware of his failing, I was
+very sorry for the old sailor; for on such a coast and in such a
+climate there was only one end to it; and although I could not
+actually prevent him from taking the liquor, I resolved to watch him,
+and if such symptoms as I had seen before again appeared, to tell Mr.
+Bransome of them at all hazards. But I was too late to prevent what
+speedily followed my discovery. It had come about that the same mail-
+steamer that had brought out Mr. Bransome had again anchored off the
+Point, and again the weather was coarse and lowering. A stiff breeze
+had blown for some days, which made the rollers worse than they had
+been for a long while. Both Mr. Bransome and Jackson watched the
+weather with eager looks, but each was differently affected by it.
+Bransome appeared to be anxious and nervous, while Jackson was
+excited, and paced up and down the veranda, and kept, strange to say,
+for it was contrary to his late habit, a watch upon Bransome's every
+movement.
+
+Every now and then, too, he would rub his hands together as if in
+eager expectation, and would chuckle to himself as he glanced seaward.
+Of his own accord he gave orders to Sooka to get both the surf-boats
+ready for launching, and to make the boys put on their newest loin-
+cloths; and then, when everything was in readiness, he asked Bransome
+if he was going off to the steamer.
+
+"I fear I must," said Bransome; "but I--I don't like the look of those
+cursed rollers."
+
+At this Jackson laughed, and said something about "being afraid of
+very little."
+
+"The beach is perfectly good," he added; "Sooka knows, and Sooka is
+the oldest patrao on the Point."
+
+And Sooka, who was standing by, made a low obeisance to the agent, and
+said that "the beach lived for well," which was his way of expressing
+in English that the sea was not heavy.
+
+At that moment a gun was fired from the steamer as a signal to be
+quick, and Bransome said, "I will go, but not in that black
+blackguard's boat; it need not come," and he went down to the beach.
+
+It was one of Jackson's rules that when a boat went through the surf
+there should be some one to watch it, so I walked to the end of the
+Point to see the agent put off. He got away safely; and I, seeing
+Sooka's boat lying on the beach, and thinking that it would be as well
+to have it hauled up under the boat-shed, was on the point of
+returning to the factory to give the necessary order, when, to my
+surprise, I saw the boat's crew rush down the beach to the boat and
+begin to push it toward the sea.
+
+I waved my arms as a signal to them to stop, but they paid no
+attention to me; and I saw them run the boat into the water, jump into
+her, and pull off, all singing a song to their stroke in their own
+language, the sound of which came faintly up to the top of the Point.
+"Stupid fellows!" I muttered to myself, "they might have known that
+the boat was not wanted;" and I was again about to turn away, when I
+was suddenly seized from behind, and carried to the very edge of the
+cliff, and then as suddenly released.
+
+I sprang to one side, and turning round saw Jackson, with a look of
+such savage fury on his face that I retreated a step or two in
+astonishment at him. He perceived my alarm, and burst out into a fit
+of laughter, which, instead of reassuring me, had the opposite effect,
+it was so demoniacal in character. "Ha! ha!" he laughed again, "are
+you frightened?" and advancing toward me, he put his face close to
+mine, peering into it with bloodshot eyes, while his breath, reeking
+of spirits, poured into my nostrils.
+
+Involuntarily I put up my arm to keep him off. He clutched it, and,
+pointing with his other hand to the sea, whispered hoarsely, "What do
+you hear of the surf? Will the breakers be heavier before sundown? See
+how they begin to curve! Listen how they already thunder, thunder, on
+the beach! I tell you they are impatient--they seek some one," he
+shouted. "Do you know," he continued, lowering his voice again, and
+speaking almost confidentially, "sooner or later some one is drowned
+upon that bar?" And even as he spoke a fresh line of breakers arose
+from the deep, farther out than any had been before. This much I
+observed, but I was too greatly unnerved by the strange manner of
+Jackson to pay further heed to the sea. It had flashed across my mind
+that he was on the verge of an attack of delirium tremens, from the
+effects of the liquor he had been consuming for so long, and the
+problem was to get him back to the house quietly.
+
+Suddenly a thought struck me. Putting my arm within his, I said, as
+coolly as I could, "Never mind the sea, Jackson; let us have a
+/matabicho/" (our local expression for a "drink"). He took the bait,
+and came away quietly enough to the house. Once there, I enticed him
+into the dining-room, and shutting to the door quickly, I locked it on
+the outside, resolving to keep him there until Mr. Bransome should
+return; for, being alone, I was afraid of him.
+
+Then I went back to the end of the Point to look for the return of the
+two boats. When I reached it I saw that the rollers had increased in
+size in the short time that I had been absent, and that they were
+breaking, one after another, as fast as they could come shoreward; not
+pygmy waves, but great walls of water along their huge length before
+they fell.
+
+A surf such as I had never yet seen had arisen. I stood and anxiously
+watched through a glass the boats at the steamer's side, and at
+length, to my relief, I saw one of them leave her, but as it came near
+I saw, to my surprise, that Mr. Bransome was not in the boat, and that
+it was not the one that Sooka steered. Quickly it was overtaken by the
+breakers, but escaped their power, and came inshore on the back of a
+majestic roller that did not break until it was close to the beach,
+where the boat was in safety.
+
+Not without vague apprehension at his imprudence, but still not
+anticipating any actual harm from it, I thought that Mr. Bransome had
+chosen to come back in Sooka's boat, and I waited and waited to see
+/it/ return, although the daylight had now so waned that I could no
+longer distinguish what was going on alongside the steamer. At last I
+caught sight of the boat, a white speck upon the waters, and, just as
+it entered upon the dangerous part of the bar, I discerned to my
+infinite amazement, that two figures were seated in the stern--a man
+and a woman--a white woman; I could see her dress fluttering in the
+wind, and Sooka's black figure standing behind her.
+
+On came the boat, impelled by the swift-flowing seas, for a quarter of
+an hour it was tossed on the crests of the waves. Again and again it
+rose and sank with them as they came rolling in, but somehow, after a
+little further time, it seemed to me that it did not make such way
+toward the shore as it should have done.
+
+I lifted the glass to my eyes, and I saw that the boys were hardly
+pulling at all, though the boat was not close to the rocks that were
+near the cliff. Nor did Sooka seem to be conscious of a huge roller
+that was swiftly approaching him. In my excitement I was just on the
+point of shouting to warn those in the boat of their danger, although
+I knew that they could not understand what I might say, when I saw
+Jackson standing on the edge of the cliff, a little way off, dressed
+in his shirt and trousers only. He had escaped from the house! He
+perceived that I saw him, and came running up on me, and I threw
+myself on my guard. However, he did not attempt to touch me, but
+stopped and cried:
+
+"Did I not tell you that somebody would be drowned by those waves?
+Watch that boat! watch it! it is doomed; and the scoundrel, the
+villain, who is in it will never reach the shore alive!" and he hissed
+the last word through his clenched teeth.
+
+"Good God, Jackson!" I said, "don't say that! Look, there is a white
+woman in the boat!"
+
+At the words his jaw dropped, his form, which a moment before had
+swayed with excitement, became rigid, and his eyes stared at me as if
+he knew, but comprehended not, what I had said. Then he slowly turned
+his face toward the sea, and, as he did so, the mighty breaker that
+had been coming up astern of the boat curled over it. For a moment or
+two it rushed forward, a solid body of water, carrying the boat with
+it; and in those moments I saw, to my horror, Sooka give one sweep
+with his oar, which threw the boat's side toward the roller. I saw the
+boat-boys leap clear of the boat into the surf; I saw the agonised
+faces of the man and the woman upturned to the wave above them, and
+then the billow broke, and nothing was seen but a sheet of frothy
+water. The boat and those in it had disappeared. For the crew I had
+little concern--I knew they would come ashore safely enough; but for
+Mr. Bransome and the woman, whoever she was, there was little hope.
+They had not had time to throw themselves into the sea before the boat
+had capsized, and their clothing would sink them in such a surf, even
+if they had escaped being crushed by the boat. Besides, I feared there
+had been some foul play on the part of Sooka. Quickly as he had done
+it, I had seen him with his oar put the boat beyond the possibility of
+escaping from the wave, and I remembered how he had been treated by
+Bransome.
+
+With such thoughts I ran along the cliff to the pathway that led down
+to the beach; and as I ran, I saw Jackson running before me, not
+steadily or rightly, but heavily, and swaying from side to side as he
+went. Quickly I passed him, but he gave no sign that he knew any one
+was near him; and as I leaped down on to the first ledge of rock below
+me, I saw that he was not following me, but had disappeared among the
+brushwood.
+
+When I got down to the beach, I found that the boat's crew had reached
+the shore in safety, but of the two passengers nothing had been seen.
+The capsized boat was sometimes visible as it lifted on the rollers,
+but through my glass I saw that no one was clinging to it. I called
+for Sooka, but Sooka was missing. Every one had seen him land, but he
+had disappeared mysteriously. In vain I questioned the other boys as
+to the cause of the disaster. The only answer I could get out of them
+was an appeal to look to the sea and judge for myself. The woman was a
+white woman from the big ship, was all they could say about her; and,
+negro-like, they evidently considered the loss of a woman or so of
+very little consequence.
+
+All I could do was to set a watch along the beach to look for the
+bodies when they should be washed ashore, and this done, I returned to
+the factory. My next desire was to find Sooka. He could hardly have
+gone far, so I sent for a runner to take a message to the native king
+under whose protection we on the Point were, and after whom the Point
+was called, and who was bound to find the missing man for me if he
+could, or if he had not been bribed to let him pass.
+
+In my sorrow at what had happened, and in my doubt as to the cause of
+it, I had forgotten all about Jackson; but after I had despatched my
+messenger to the king, I went to look for him. I discovered him
+crouching in a corner of his own bedroom in the dark.
+
+"Are they found?" he asked, in a voice so hollow and broken that I
+hardly knew it; and before I could answer him, he whispered to
+himself, "No, no; they are drowned--drowned."
+
+I tried to lead him into the lighted dining-room, but he only crouched
+the closer to his corner. At length by the promise of the ever-potent
+temptation, liquor, I got him to leave the room. He could scarcely
+walk, though, now, and he trembled so violently that I was glad to
+give him part of a bottle of brandy that I had by me. He filled a
+tumbler half full of the spirits, and drank it off. This put strength
+into him, and for a little he was calm; but as he again and again
+applied himself to the bottle, he became drunk, and swore at me for my
+impudence in giving orders without his sanction. On this I tried to
+take the bottle from him, but he clutched it so firmly that I had to
+let it go; whereupon he immediately put it to his lips and swallowed
+the rest of the liquor that was in it. After which he gave a chuckle,
+and staggered to a couch, on which he tumbled, and lay with his eyes
+open for a long while. At last he fell asleep, but I was too nervous
+to do likewise, and sat watching him the most of the night; at least,
+when I awoke it was daylight, and it seemed to me that I had been
+asleep for a few minutes.
+
+Jackson was still lying on the couch, and his face was calm and
+peaceful as he softly breathed. The morning, too, was fine, and as I
+walked on to the veranda I saw the sea sparkling in the sunlight, and
+there was not a sound from it save a far-off and drowsy murmur. Not a
+sign remained on its broad surface of the wrath of the day before. It
+was wonderfully calm. Lying here and there on the veranda, rolled up
+in their clothes, were the servants of the factory, sleeping soundly
+on the hard planks.
+
+Presently, as the sun rose in the heavens and warmed the air, the
+place began to show signs of life, and one of the watch that I had set
+on the beach came running across the yard to tell me that the bodies
+had come ashore.
+
+Immediately upon hearing this I called the hammock-bearers together,
+and going down to the beach, I went a considerable way along it toward
+a dark spot, which I knew to be a group of natives. On coming up to
+the group, I found at least fifty negroes collected round the drowned
+man and woman, all chattering and squabbling among themselves, and
+probably over the plunder, for I saw that the bodies had been stripped
+to their underclothing. Rushing into the crowd, with the aid of a
+stick I dispersed it, so far as to make the wretches stand back. The
+man, of course, was Bransome, there was no doubt as to that, although
+he had received a terrible blow on the left temple, most likely from
+the pointed stem of the boat as it had toppled over upon him, and his
+face was distorted and twisted to one side. The woman was evidently
+English, young and pretty, although her long hair, heavy and wet, was
+polluted by the sand that stuck to it, and her half-open eyes were
+filled with the same. On her lips there lingered a slight smile. She
+was of middle height, of slender figure, and delicately nurtured, as
+the small bare feet and little hands showed. As I looked at the latter
+I saw a wedding-ring on her finger, and I thought, "It is Bransome's
+wife." I tried to take the ring away, but it would not come off her
+finger--which I might have known, because the natives would not have
+left it there had they been able to remove it. I then ordered the
+bearers to lay the bodies in the hammocks; and that done, our little
+party wended its way along the shore homeward, while the natives I had
+dispersed followed one after another in African fashion.
+
+Arrived at the factory, I bade the boys place the bodies side by side
+on a spare bed in an empty room, and then I sent them to dig a grave
+in the little burial-ground on the Point, where two or three worm-
+eaten wooden crosses marked the resting-places of former agents of
+Messrs. Flint Brothers.
+
+As quick interment was necessary in such a climate, even on that very
+day, I went to call Jackson in order that he might perform the duty
+that was his--that of reading the burial service over the dead, and of
+sealing up the desk and effects of Mr. Bransome. But Jackson was not
+in the factory. I guessed, however, where he was; and sure enough I
+found him in his accustomed haunt at the end of the Point. The moment
+he saw me he tried to hide himself among the brushwood, but I was too
+quick for him, and spied him as he crouched behind a dwarf palm.
+
+"I know, I know," he cried, as I ran up to him; "I saw you come along
+the beach. Bury them, bury them out of sight."
+
+"Come, Mr. Jackson," I replied, "it isn't fair to put all the trouble
+on to me. I am sure I have had enough of the weariness and anxiety of
+this sad business. You must take your share of it. I want you to read
+the service for the dead over them."
+
+"No, no," he almost shrieked; "bury them quick; never mind me. Put
+them out of sight."
+
+"I will not," I said, resolutely. "For your own sake you must, at any
+rate, view the bodies."
+
+"They have not been murdered?" He replied. But the startled look with
+which I received the suggestion his words implied seemed to make him
+recollect himself, for he rose and took my arm without saying more. As
+he did so, I felt for the first time a sort of repugnance toward him.
+Up to that moment my feeling had been one of pity and anxiety on his
+account, but now I loathed him. This he seemed instinctively to feel,
+and he clung closely to me.
+
+Once at the factory I determined that there should be no more delay on
+his part, and I took him to the door of the room where the bodies had
+been laid, but at it he made a sudden halt and would not enter.
+Covering his face with his hands, he trembled violently as I pushed
+the door open and advanced to the bedside. The room, hushed and in
+semi-darkness; the white sheet, whose surface showed too plainly the
+forms beneath it; and the scared, terrified face of the man who, with
+brain afire, stood watching, with staring eyes, the bed, made a scene
+I have never forgotten.
+
+Slowly I turned down the upper part of the sheet, and Jackson, as if
+fascinated by the act, advanced a step or two into the room, but with
+face averted. Gradually he turned it toward the bodies, and for a
+moment his gaze rested upon them. The next instant he staggered
+forward, looked at the woman's face, panted for breath once or twice,
+and then, with uplifted hands and a wild cry of "Lucy!" fell his
+length upon the floor. When I stooped over him he was in convulsions,
+and dark matter was oozing out of his mouth. The climax had come. I
+shouted for the servants, and they carried him to his own room, and
+placed him on his own bed.
+
+How I got through that day I hardly know. Alone I buried Bransome and
+his wife, and alone I returned from the hurried task to watch by
+Jackson's bedside. None of the natives would stay near him. For two
+days he lay unconscious. At the end of that time he seemed to have
+some idea of the outside world, for his eyes met mine with
+intelligence in their look, and on bending over him I heard him
+whisper, "Forgive me!" Then he relapsed into unconsciousness again.
+Through the long hours his eyes remained ever open and restless; he
+could not eat, nor did he sleep, and I was afraid he would pass away
+through weakness without a sign, being an old man. On the third day he
+became delirious, and commenced chattering and talking to himself, and
+imagining that all kinds of horrid shapes and creatures were around
+and near him. I had to watch him narrowly in order to prevent him
+stealing out of his bed, which he was ready to do at any moment to
+avoid the tortures which he fearfully imagined awaited him. By these
+signs I knew that he was in the middle of an attack of delirium
+tremens, and I tried to quiet him by means of laudanum, but it had no
+effect upon him. I got him, however, to swallow a little soup, which
+sustained him. My own boy was the only negro I had been able to induce
+to stay in the room, and he would only remain in it while I was there.
+
+I had sent a messenger to the nearest station, where I remembered
+there was a Portuguese doctor; but he had not returned by the evening
+of the fourth day. That night, worn out with watching, I had dozed off
+to sleep on a chair placed by the sick man's bed, when all at once I
+was awakened by a loud report, and I jumped up to find the room filled
+with smoke. As it cleared away I saw that Jackson was standing in the
+middle of the room with a revolver in his hand. As I confronted him he
+laughed a devilish laugh and cocked the weapon, crying as he did so,
+"It was you who tempted me with your smooth face and unsuspicious way,
+and you shall die, though I suffer doubly in hell for it. Hist!" and
+he stopped suddenly and listened. "Don't you hear the breakers? Hark,
+how they roar! They say they are ready, always ready," and staring in
+front of him, he advanced, as if following the sign of an invisible
+hand, to the door, unconsciously placing, to my infinite relief, the
+revolver on the top of a chest of drawers as he passed by it. I did
+not dare to move, and he opened the door and walked into the front
+room. Then I followed him. For a little he remained in the room,
+glaring vacantly about him, and muttering to himself; but seeing the
+outer door open he made a rush toward it, and disappeared into the
+darkness of the night. Calling to the boy, I ran after him, and easily
+came up to him, when he turned, and picking up a heavier stone than I
+thought he could have lifted, threw it at me. I dodged it and closed
+with him. Once in my arms I found I could hold him, and my servant and
+I carried him back into the factory. We placed him on the floor of the
+dining-room, and he was too exhausted to move for a while. By degrees,
+however, he recovered sufficiently to stand; and as soon as he could
+do so by himself, with devilish cunning he made for the lamp, which he
+struck, quick as lightning, with a stick that had been lying on the
+table. In an instant the great round globe fell to pieces, but luckily
+the chimney was not broken, and the lamp remained alight, and before
+he could strike another blow at it I had grappled with him again. This
+time he struggled violently for a few moments, and seemed to think
+that he was dealing with Bransome, for he shrieked, "What! have you
+come back from the sea? You are wet! you are wet!" and shuddering, he
+tried to free himself from my hold; and I, not liking to hurt him, let
+him go, taking care to keep myself between him and the lamp.
+
+"Back from me, you villain of hell!" he cried, as soon as he was free.
+"What have you done with her? what have you done with her?" And then,
+in a tone of weird and pathetic sorrow, "Where is my little one that I
+loved? I have sought her many a year; oh, why did she forsake me? Aha,
+Sooka! we were right to send him to the hell whence he came--the
+lying, false-hearted scoundrel, to steal away my white dove!"
+
+After which he drew from his finger a solid gold ring which he always
+wore, and threw it from him, saying, with a wild laugh, "There! that's
+for any one that likes it; I'm a dead man." He then staggered toward
+his own room, and I, remembering the loaded revolver which still lay
+on the chest of drawers, tried to intercept him. In his rage, for I
+verily believe that he also remembered that the weapon was there, he
+spat in my face, and struck me with all his force between the eyes;
+but I stuck to him, and with the help of the boy, who had been all
+this time in hiding, but who came forward at my call, I laid him for
+the last time upon his bed. There he lay exhausted for the remainder
+of the night; but there was no rest for me; I felt that I had to watch
+him now for my own safety.
+
+Toward morning, however, his breathing became, all at once, very heavy
+and slow, and I bent over him in alarm. As I did so, I heard him sigh
+faintly, "Lucy!" and at that moment the native boy softly placed
+something upon the bed. I took it up. It was the ring the sick man had
+thrown away in the night, and as I looked at it I saw "James, from
+Lucy" engraved on its inside surface, and I knew that the dead woman
+was his wife.
+
+As the first faint streaks of dawn stole into the room, the slow-drawn
+breathing of the dying man ceased. I listened--it came again--once--
+twice--and then all was silence. He was dead, and I realised in the
+sudden stillness that had come upon the room that I was alone. Yet he
+had passed away so quietly after his fitful fever that I could not
+bring myself to believe that he was really gone, and I stood looking
+at the body, fearing to convince myself of the truth by touching it.
+
+So entranced was I by that feeling of awe which comes to almost every
+one in the presence of death, that I did not hear the shouting of the
+hammock-boy outside, or the footsteps of a white man coming into the
+room; and not until he touched me on the shoulder did I turn and
+recognise the sallow face of the Portuguese doctor whom I had sent
+for, and who had thus arrived too late. However, he served to help me
+to bury the mortal part of Jackson in the little graveyard beside the
+body of his wife and that of the man who had come between them when
+alive. And such was without doubt the fact; for when the doctor had
+gone, and I was alone again, I collected and made an inventory of the
+dead men's effects, and in Jackson's desk I found his diary, or, as he
+himself would have called it, his log; and in that log was noted, on
+the very day that Bransome had arrived on the Point, his suspicion of
+the man, and later on his conviction that Bransome was indeed he who
+had injured him.
+
+Sooka was never found; but when the mail-steamer returned from the
+south coast, I discovered that the younger patrao had made his crew
+row away suddenly from the steamer's side, while Mr. Bransome had been
+engaged below, and was out of sight. So it was evident that the pair
+had been in league together to insure Sooka his revenge. What share
+Jackson had had in the murder of his enemy I did not care to think of,
+but feared the worst.
+
+For myself, I had to remain on the Point for many months, until the
+factory was finally closed--for no purchaser was ever found for it;
+and doubtless, by this time, the buildings are in ruins, and long
+grass hides the graves of those who sleep upon King Bemba's Point.
+
+
+
+GHAMBA
+
+BY
+
+WILLIAM CHARLES SCULLY
+
+
+
+The darksome cave they enter, where they find
+That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,
+Musing full sadly in his sullen mind.
+/The Faerie Queene./
+
+
+
+When Corporal Francis Dollond and Trooper James Franks, of the Natal
+Mounted Police, overstayed their ten days' leave of absence from the
+camp on the Upper Tugela, in the early part of 1883, everybody was
+much surprised; they being two of the best conducted and most
+methodical men in the force. But the weeks and then the months went by
+without anything whatever being heard of them, so they were officially
+recorded as deserters. Nevertheless none of their comrades really
+believed that these men had deserted; each one felt there was
+something mysterious about the circumstances of their disappearance.
+They had applied for leave for the alleged purpose of visiting
+Pietermaritzburg. They started on foot, stating their intention of
+walking to Estcourt, hiring horses from natives there, and proceeding
+on horseback. They had evidently never reached Estcourt, as nothing
+could be heard of them at that village. They were both young men--
+colonists by birth. Dollond had an especially youthful appearance.
+Franks was older. He had joined the force later in life. He and
+Dollond, who had only very recently before his disappearance been
+promoted, were chums.
+
+Some months later in the same year, when Troopers George Langley and
+Hiram Whitson also applied for ten days' leave of absence,--likewise
+to proceed to Pietermaritzburg,--the leave was granted; but the
+officer in charge of the detachment laughingly remarked that he hoped
+they were not going to follow Dollond and Franks.
+
+Now, neither Langley nor Whitson had the remotest idea of visiting
+Pietermaritzburg. It is necessary, of course, for the reader to know
+where they did intend going to, and how the intention arose; but
+before doing this we must deal with some antecedent circumstances.
+
+Langley was most certainly the most boyish-looking man in the force.
+He had a perfectly smooth face, ruddy complexion, and fair hair. He
+was of middle height, and was rather inclined to stoutness. He was so
+fond of talking that his comrades nicknamed him "Magpie." A colonist
+by birth, he could speak the Kaffir language like a native.
+
+Whitson was a sallow-faced, spare-built man of short stature, with
+dark-brown beard and hair, and piercing black eyes. His age was about
+forty. He had a wiry and terrier-like appearance. A "down-East"
+Yankee, he had spent some years in Mexico, and then drifted to South
+Africa during the war period, which, it will be remembered, lasted
+from 1877 to 1882. He had served in the Zulu war as a non-commissioned
+officer in one of the irregular cavalry corps, with some credit. The
+fact of his being a man of extremely few words was enough to account
+for the friendship which existed between him and the garrulous
+Langley. Whitson was known to be a dead shot with the revolver.
+
+This is how they came to apply for leave: One day Langley was
+strolling about just outside the lines, looking for somebody to talk
+to, when he noticed an apparently very old native man sitting on an
+ant-heap and regarding him somewhat intently. This old native had been
+several times seen in the vicinity of the camp, but he never seemed to
+speak to any one, and he looked so harmless that the police did not
+even trouble to ask him for the written pass which all natives are
+obliged by law to carry when they move about the country. The old man
+saluted Langley and asked in his own language for a pipeful of
+tobacco. Langley always carried some loose leaves broken up in his
+pocket, so he at once pulled some of these out and half filled the
+claw-like hand outstretched to receive them. The old native was
+voluble in his thanks. There was a large ant-heap close to the one on
+which he had been sitting, and on which he reseated himself while
+filling his pipe. Against this Langley leaned and took a good look at
+his companion. The man had a most extraordinary face. His lower jaw
+and cheek-bones were largely developed, but Langley hardly noticed
+this, so struck was he with the strange formation of the upper jaw.
+That portion of the superior maxillary bone which lies between the
+sockets of the eye-teeth protruded, with the sockets, to a remarkable
+degree, and instead of being curved appeared to be quite straight. The
+incisor teeth were very large and white, but it was the development of
+the eye-teeth that was most startling. These, besides being very
+massive, were produced below the level of the incisors to a depth of
+nearly a quarter of an inch. They distinctly suggested to Langley the
+tusks of a baboon.
+
+As is not very unusual with natives, the man was perfectly bald. His
+back was bent, and his limbs were somewhat shrunken, but he did not
+appear in the least degree decrepit. His eyelids were very red, and
+his eyes, though dim, had a deep and intent look. Ugly as was the man
+--or perhaps by virtue of his ugliness--he exercised a strange
+fascination over Langley.
+
+The old man, whose name turned out to be Ghamba, proved himself a
+talker after Langley's own heart. They discussed all sorts of things.
+Ghamba startled his hearer by his breadth of experience and his
+shrewdness. He said he was a "Hlubi" Kaffir from Qumbu, in the
+territory of Griqualand East, but that he had for some time past been
+living in Basutoland, which is situated just behind the frowning wall
+of the Drakensberg, to the southwest of where they were speaking, and
+not twenty miles distant.
+
+They talked until it was time for Langley to return to camp. He was so
+pleased at the entertainment afforded by Ghamba that all the tobacco
+he had with him found its way into the claw-like hand of that strange-
+looking man of many experiences and quaint ideas. So Langley asked him
+to come to the ant-heap again on the following day, and have another
+talk at the same hour. This Ghamba, with a wide and prolonged exposure
+of his teeth, readily agreed to do.
+
+Langley was extremely voluble to Whitson that night over his new
+acquaintance. Whitson listened with his usual impassiveness, and then
+asked Langley how it was that "an old loafing nigger," as he expressed
+it, had impressed him so remarkably. Langley replied that he did not
+quite know, but he thought the effect was largely due to the man's
+teeth. But all the same he was "a very entertaining old buffer."
+
+Next afternoon Langley was so impatient to resume conversation with
+his new friend that he repaired to the ant-heap quite half an hour
+before the appointed time. He had not, however, long to wait, as
+Ghamba soon appeared, emerging from a donga a couple of hundred yards
+away.
+
+Langley was more impressed than ever. Ghamba told him all about the
+Basutos, among whom he had lived; about the old days in Natal, before
+even the Dutch occupation, when Tshaka's impis wiped whole tribes out
+of existence; of the recent wars in Zululand and the Cape Colony, and
+as to the probability of future disturbances. Charmed as was Langley
+by the old man's conversation, he felt that on this occasion there was
+a little too much of it; that Ghamba was not nearly so good a listener
+as he had been on the previous day; so when the latter at length put a
+question to him, thus affording an opportunity for the exercise of his
+own pentup loquacity, Langley felt elated, more especially as several
+inquiries were grouped together in the one asking. Ghamba asked
+whether anything had been heard of Umhlonhlo; whether the capture of
+that fugitive rebel was considered likely, and whether it was true
+that a reward of five hundred pounds had been offered by the
+government for his capture, dead or alive.
+
+Umhlonhlo, it will be remembered, was the Pondomise chief who rebelled
+in 1880, treacherously murdered Mr. Hope, the magistrate of Qumbu, and
+his two companions, and who has since been an outlaw with a price on
+his head.
+
+Langley replied to the effect that it was quite true such a reward had
+been offered as to Umhlonhlo's whereabouts, but that the government
+believed him to be in Pondoland; that he was sure to be captured
+eventually; that he, Langley, only wished he knew where Umhlonhlo was,
+so as to have the chance of making five hundred pounds with which to
+buy a certain nice little farm he knew of; and that should he ever
+succeed in obtaining the reward, and consequently in taking his
+discharge and purchasing the farm, he would be jolly glad if old
+Ghamba would come and live with him. This is only some of what he
+said; when Langley's tongue got into motion, he seemed to have some
+difficulty in stopping it.
+
+However, he paused at last, and then Ghamba, looking very intently at
+him, said:
+
+"Look here, can you keep a secret?"
+
+Here was a mystery.
+
+"Rather!" said Langley.
+
+"Will you swear by the name of God that you will not reveal what I
+have to tell you?"
+
+Langley swore.
+
+Ghamba drew near until his teeth were within a few inches of Langley's
+cheek, and said in a whisper:
+
+"I know where Umhlonhlo is."
+
+Langley started, and said in an awed voice:
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Wait a bit," said Ghamba; "perhaps I will tell you, and perhaps I
+won't. I like you; you have given me tobacco, and you are not too
+proud to come and talk to a poor old man. Now, you say you would like
+to make five hundred pounds and buy a farm?"
+
+"Rather!"
+
+"And that you would let me go and live on the farm with you and end my
+days in peace?"
+
+"I would, gladly."
+
+"Well then, if I take you to where Umhlonhlo is, and you will kill him
+and get the money, will you give me twenty-five pounds, and let me
+keep a few goats, and grow a few mealies on your land?"
+
+"I should think I would. But how could one man take or kill Umhlonhlo?
+They say he is well armed and that he has a lot of followers with
+him."
+
+"Umhlonhlo," said Ghamba, glancing anxiously round as if he feared the
+very ant-heaps were listening, "is hiding in a cave in the mountain,
+not three days' walk from here. He has not got a single man with him,
+because he fears being given up. He is really in hiding from his own
+followers now. My sister is one of his wives, and that is how I know
+all about it. I passed the cave where he lives four nights ago, and
+saw him sitting by the fire. He has only a few women with him."
+
+"And how do you think I should take him?"
+
+"Take him? you should kill him. I will guide you to the cave by night,
+and then you can shoot him as he sits by the fire."
+
+Langley, although no coward, was not particularly brave. He did not
+much relish the idea of alone tackling the redoubtable Umhlonhlo, a
+savage of muscle, who was reported to be always armed to the teeth.
+Moreover, he had no gun, and was but an indifferent shot with a
+revolver. So he thought over the matter for a few moments and then
+said:
+
+"Look here, Ghamba; I do not care to tackle this job alone, but if I
+can take another man with me, I am on."
+
+"Then you will only get half of the five hundred pounds, and will not
+be able to buy the farm. You need not be afraid; you can shoot him
+without his seeing you."
+
+"No," said Langley, after a pause; "I will not go alone, but if you
+will let me take another man with me it can be managed. It will make
+no difference to you; you will get your twenty-five pounds."
+
+"And how about my going to live on the farm with you?"
+
+"Well, I could not buy the farm for two hundred and fifty pounds.
+Come, we will give you fifty pounds instead of twenty-five."
+
+Ghamba thought for a while and then said:
+
+"Very well, I consent. But there need be only one other man, and you
+will write down on a piece of paper that you will give me fifty
+pounds. When can we start?"
+
+"I must speak to the other man, and then we will apply for leave. We
+had better start soon, or else Umhlonhlo may have gone to some other
+place of hiding."
+
+"Yes, we must lose no time."
+
+"All right! Meet me here to-morrow and I will bring my friend. We will
+then settle all about it."
+
+"You must not mention this matter to any one else, and you must make
+your friend promise to keep the secret."
+
+"Oh, that's all right!" said Langley. "Meet me here to-morrow, just
+after dinner."
+
+Langley went back to camp, Ghamba looking after his retreating figure
+with a smile that revealed his teeth in a very striking manner.
+Langley was intensely excited, and exacted (quite unnecessarily) the
+most solemn promises from Whitson not to divulge the great secret
+which he confided to him. Whitson agreed at once to join in the
+enterprise, which was one after his own heart.
+
+Next day the three met at the big ant-heap, and Whitson was very much
+impressed by Ghamba's teeth. He told Langley afterward that they
+reminded him of a picture of the devil which he had seen in a copy of
+"Pilgrim's Progress." The old man's story appeared, however,
+consistent enough, in spite of his peculiar dentition.
+
+So, after a short conversation, Langley and Whitson returned to camp,
+having made an appointment to meet Ghamba again on the following
+morning at sunrise, so as to finally arrange as to time of starting,
+etc. They went at once to the officer in charge of the detachment and
+applied for ten days' leave of absence for the purpose of proceeding
+to Pietermaritzburg, which was at once granted.
+
+Next morning they met Ghamba again, and agreed to start on their
+expedition that evening. He explained that they must do all their
+traveling by night, and lie by during the day; because it would never
+do for him, Ghamba, to run the risk of being recognised by persons
+whom they might meet. For the sake of his Hlubi relations who were
+living among the Pondomise at Qumbu, it was absolutely necessary that
+he should not appear in the transaction at all. Were it ever to be
+even suspected that he had betrayed the chief, not alone would he be
+certainly killed, but all his relations would be shunned by the other
+natives. He was an old man, so for him, personally, nothing mattered
+very much, but a man is bound to consider the interests of his family.
+Travelling only by night, and lying still and hidden during the day,
+were therefore absolutely necessary stipulations, and Langley and
+Whitson agreed to them as intelligible and reasonable. All being
+settled, the latter started for the camp, Ghamba baring his teeth
+excessively as they walked away.
+
+
+At dusk on the evening of the same day, Langley and Whitson met Ghamba
+once more at the large ant-heap, and the three at once proceeded on
+their course. The only arms taken were revolvers of the government
+regulation pattern (breech-loading central fire). They carried
+provisions calculated to last eight days, but took no blankets on
+account of having to travel at night. When Ghamba volunteered to
+relieve them of a considerable share of their respective loads,
+Langley and Whitson were filled with grateful surprise.
+
+The plan was as follows: Whitson was to shoot Umhlonhlo, and then
+remain in the cave while Langley returned to the camp to report what
+had been done, and cause persons who could identify the body to be
+sent for. They seem to have had no scruples as to the deed they meant
+to do; certainly Umhlonhlo deserved no more mercy than a beast of
+prey. Nor does it seem to have struck them that possibly they might
+shoot the wrong man. But there was an air of conviction about the
+manner in which Ghamba showed his teeth when asked whether he was
+positive as to the identity of the man in the cave, that would have
+dissipated the doubts of most men. Besides this, he drew out the
+written undertaking which they had delivered to him, and said, with a
+profoundly businesslike look:
+
+"Do I not want the money? Should I take all this trouble if I did not
+know what I were doing?"
+
+They walked all night, only resting once or twice for a few minutes.
+It was found that Ghamba, in spite of his age, was an extremely good
+walker; and when they halted at daylight, Langley was so done up that
+he could not have held out for another half-hour. Whitson, the wiry,
+had not yet felt the least fatigue.
+
+This march had taken them to the very foot of the Drakensberg range,
+and they rested in a valley between two of its main spurs. Here they
+remained all day, comfortably located in a sheltered nook where there
+was plenty of dry grass. Their resting-place was encircled by immense
+rocks. Although the surrounding country was desolate to a degree, and
+neither a human being nor an animal was to be seen, Ghamba would not
+hear of their lighting a fire nor leaving the spot where they rested.
+The weather was clear, and neither too warm nor too cold. They slept
+at intervals during the day, and at evening felt quite recovered from
+their fatigue.
+
+At nightfall they again started, their course leading steeply up the
+gorge in which they had rested. Although the pathway became more and
+more indistinct, Ghamba appeared never to be at a loss. Langley
+several times shuddered, when they passed by the very edge of some
+immense precipice, or clambered along some steep mountain-side, where
+a false step would have meant destruction. He began to show signs of
+fatigue soon after midnight, so at Ghamba's suggestion a considerable
+portion of his load was transferred to the shoulders of Whitson, who
+seemed to be as tireless as Ghamba himself.
+
+At daybreak they halted in the depths of another tremendous gorge with
+precipitous sides. The scenery in this particular area of the
+Drakensberg range, the neighbourhood of the Mont aux Sources, is
+indescribably grand and impressive, and is quite unlike anything else
+in South Africa. Enormous and fantastically shaped mountains are here
+huddled together indiscriminately, and between them wind and double
+deep gloomy gorges, along the bottoms of which mighty boulders are
+thickly strewn. On dizzy ledge and steep slope dense thickets of wild
+bamboo grow, and a few stunted trees fill some of the less deep
+clefts, wherever the sunshine can penetrate. Splendid as is the
+scenery, its gloom, its stillness, its naked crags and peaks, its dark
+depths that seem to cleave to the very vitals of the earth, become so
+oppressive that, after a few days spent among them, the traveller is
+filled with repulsion and almost horror. Few living things have their
+home there. You might meet an occasional "klipspringer" (an antelope,
+in habits and appearance somewhat like the chamois), a wandering troop
+of baboons, and now and then a herd of eland in the more grassy areas.
+There are said to be a few Bushmen still haunting the caves, but they
+are seldom or never seen.
+
+In the afternoon the sun shone into the gorge in which the travellers
+were resting, and for a few hours the heat was very oppressive.
+Whitson examined his revolver, removing the cartridges and replacing
+them by others. He then lay down to sleep, asking Langley to remain
+awake and keep a lookout. He had a vague feeling of uneasiness which
+he could not overcome. Langley promised to keep awake, but he was too
+tired to do so. He sat with his back against a rock, and, after some
+futile efforts to keep his eyes open, fell fast asleep. By-and-by
+Ghamba woke him gently, and, pointing to Whitson, whose revolver lay
+in the leather case close to his hand, whispered:
+
+"Did he not tell you to keep awake?"
+
+Langley was grateful for this evidence of consideration, but he could
+not quite make out how Ghamba had been able to understand what Whitson
+had said. However, when the latter awoke, Langley said nothing to him
+about having disobeyed instructions.
+
+Ghamba said that about two hours' walk would now bring them to
+Umhlonhlo's cave, so they started off briskly at dusk. Their course
+now led for some distance along a mountain ledge covered with wild
+bamboo, through which the pathway wound. Then they crossed a steep
+saddle between two enormous peaks, after which they plunged into
+another deep and winding gorge. This they followed until they reached
+a part where it was so narrow that the sides seemed almost to touch
+over their heads. Beyond the cliffs fell apart, and then apparently
+curved toward each other again, thus forming an immense amphitheatre.
+At the entrance to this Ghamba stopped, and said in a whisper that
+they were now close to the cave.
+
+They now held a consultation, in terms of which it was decided that
+Ghamba should go forward and reconnoitre. So Whitson and Langley sat
+down close together and waited, conversing in low tones.
+
+Whitson felt very uneasy, but Langley tried to argue him out of his
+fears. The more Whitson saw of Ghamba, the more he disliked and
+distrusted him and his teeth. The instinct which detects danger in the
+absence of any apparent evidence of its existence is a faculty
+developed in some men by an adventurous life. This faculty Whitson
+possessed in a high degree.
+
+"Did you keep awake all the time I slept this afternoon?" he asked.
+
+Langley feared Whitson and felt inclined to lie, but something
+impelled him, almost against his will, to speak the truth now.
+
+"No," he replied; "I slept for a few minutes."
+
+Whitson drew his revolver and opened the breech.
+
+"By God!" he said, "the cartridges are gone!"
+
+Langley took his weapon out of the leather case and opened it. He
+found the cartridges were there right enough.
+
+"Have you any spare cartridges?" asked Whitson.
+
+Whitson had already loaded his revolver with the five cartridges which
+he had removed in the afternoon, but he again took these out and
+replaced them in his waistcoat pocket, and then he reloaded with some
+which Langley passed over to him with a trembling hand.
+
+"Look here," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "we are in a trap of some
+kind. When that old scoundrel comes back, do not let him know that we
+have found out anything. We will walk on with him for a short
+distance, at all events, and then be guided by circumstances. Stand by
+when you see me collar him, and slip a sack over his head."
+
+"Can we not go back now?" said Langley.
+
+"Certainly not; we would never find our way at night. I guess we must
+see this circus out. If you have to shoot, aim low."
+
+In a few minutes Ghamba returned.
+
+"Come on," he said. "He is sitting at the fire in front of the cave. I
+have just seen him."
+
+"Where is the cave?" asked Whitson. "Is it far from here?"
+
+"We will reach it very soon; you can see the light of the fire from a
+few paces ahead."
+
+They walked on for about fifty yards, and there, sure enough, over a
+rocky slope to their left, and at the foot of a crag about three
+hundred yards away, could be seen the bright and fitful glow from a
+fire which was hidden from their view by a low ridge of piled-up
+rocks.
+
+Whitson stood still and questioned Ghamba:
+
+"Now tell me," he asked, through Langley as interpreter, "how we are
+to approach."
+
+"The pathway leads up on the left side," replied Ghamba. "We will walk
+close up to the crag, where there is a narrow passage between it and
+that big black rock which you see against the light. You two can lead,
+and I will be close behind. I have just seen him. He is sitting at the
+fire, eating, and only the women are with him."
+
+The last words were hardly out of the speaker's mouth before Whitson
+had seized him by the throat with a vice-like grasp.
+
+"Seize his hands and hold them," he hissed to Langley.
+
+Ghamba struggled desperately, but could not release himself. Whitson
+compressed his throat until he became unconscious, and then gagged him
+with a pocket-handkerchief. Ghamba's hands were then tied tightly
+behind his back with another pocket-handkerchief, and his feet were
+firmly secured with a belt. An empty sack (from which they had removed
+their provisions) was then drawn over his head and shoulders, and
+secured round the waist.
+
+"Come on now, quickly," whispered Whitson, and he and Langley started
+off in the direction of the fire, after first taking off their boots.
+
+They did not approach by the course which Ghamba had indicated, but
+made their way quietly up the slope, straight against the face of the
+crag. They reached the heap of rocks, and crept in among them by means
+of another narrow passage, close to the inner end of which the fire
+was; and this is what they saw through the twigs of a scrubby bush
+which effectually concealed them:
+
+A large cave opened into the side of the mountain, and just before the
+mouth was an open space about twenty yards in diameter, surrounded on
+all sides, except that of the mountain itself, by a wall of loosely
+piled rocks, through which passages led out in different directions.
+Just in front of the cave burned a bright fire, around which crouched
+four most hideous and filthy-looking old hags, and against which were
+propped several large earthenware pots of native make, full of water.
+Standing behind rocks, one at each side of the inner entrance to the
+passage, which was evidently that communicating with the pathway
+indicated by Ghamba as the one they were to approach by, were two
+powerful-looking men, stark naked, and as black as ebony, their skins
+shining in the light of the fire. Each man held a coiled thong in his
+hands, after the manner of a sailor about to heave a line. While they
+were looking, a woman, somewhat younger in appearance than any of
+those who sat by the fire, came out of the cave carrying a strong club
+about three feet long. She crouched down close to the man standing on
+the left-side of the passage, who, as well as his companion, stood as
+still as a marble statue, and in an expectant attitude.
+
+Whitson and Langley, with their revolvers drawn, suddenly stepped out
+of their concealment, and walked toward the fire. This evidently
+disconcerted the men with the thongs, who apparently did not expect
+their intended prey to approach by any course except the passage near
+which they were standing; but after a slight pause of hesitancy the
+thongs were whirling in the air, and descending, lasso-fashion, upon
+the shoulders of the intruders. The noose caught Langley over his
+arms, which were instantly drawn close against his body as the thong
+tightened, so he was thus rendered completely powerless; but Whitson
+sprang, quick as lightning, to one side, and escaped. Three shots from
+his revolver rang out in as many seconds, and the two men and the
+woman--who was in the act of lifting her club to brain Langley--lay
+rolling on the ground, each with a bullet through the head.
+
+The four old hags at the fire began to mow and scream, and got up and
+hobbled into the cave. Whitson drew his knife and cut the thong with
+which Langley was vainly struggling, and then the two men, pale as
+death, looked silently at each other with staring eyes.
+
+Whitson replaced his revolver, and then made a sort of torch out of
+dry reeds, a pile of which lay close at hand. He then, leaving Langley
+to guard the cave, carefully examined all the passages and spaces
+between the rocks, but he could find no trace of any one. The two men
+thereupon entered the cave, Whitson holding the torch high over his
+head. They found that it ran straight in for about fifteen paces, and
+then curved sharply to the left.
+
+It was about four paces in width, and about eight feet high, the roof
+being roughly arched. The walls and roof were covered with thick black
+greasy soot; and an indescribably horrible stench, which increased the
+farther they advanced, made them almost vomit. They found that where
+the cave curved to the left it ended in a circular chamber about eight
+paces in diameter, and at one side of this crouched the four old hags,
+huddled together, and mowing and chattering horribly.
+
+Across a cleft about two feet wide, in the right-hand wall of the
+cave, a stick was fixed transversely, and hanging to this were some
+lumps of half-dried and smoked flesh. Whitson went up close and
+examined these carefully. He drew back with a shudder, and his face
+changed from pale to ashen gray.
+
+He and Langley then went outside and stood for a while in the fresh
+air. They could endure, just then, no more of the fetid atmosphere
+inside. After a short time they gathered up some dry twigs and reeds,
+and set several little heaps alight at different spots inside. This
+had the effect of making the atmosphere more bearable in the course of
+a few minutes. They then made a larger fire in the middle of the cave,
+and proceeded to examine it more closely.
+
+They found several old iron picks, such as are used by natives in
+cultivating their fields, some very filthy skins, a number of
+earthenware pots, a few knives, and an axe; but nothing more.
+
+The floor of the cave was of clay, and at one spot it appeared to have
+been recently disturbed. Here Langley began to dig with a pick, which,
+just below the surface, struck against some hard substance. This, when
+uncovered, proved to be a bone. He threw it to one side and dug
+deeper, uncovering more bones--some old, and others comparatively
+fresh, but emitting a horrible smell. He stooped and picked one up,
+but dropped it immediately, as if it burned him. It was the lower
+jawbone of a human being.
+
+"Great God!" he gasped. "What is the meaning of this?"
+
+"It means," said Whitson, "that we are in a nest of bloody cannibals!"
+
+Langley dropped like a stone, in a dead faint; so Whitson dragged him
+outside, and, leaving him to recover in the open air, returned to the
+cave. He then seized the pick and began digging, unearthing some new
+horror at every stroke. A glittering object caught his eye; he picked
+this up and found it to be the steel buckle of a woman's belt. He
+glanced toward the cleft in the rock where the lumps of flesh were
+hanging, and caught his breath short. Going outside he made another
+torch, which he lit; and then he returned and carefully examined the
+loosened surface. Another glittering object caught his eye. This, when
+examined, proved to be an old silver watch, the appearance of which
+seemed familiar. He forced open the case, and saw, roughly scratched
+on the inside, the letter D. He now recognised it; he remembered
+having once fixed a glass in this very watch for Dollond, about a
+month before the latter's disappearance. Continuing his search Whitson
+found the iron heel-plate of a boot, and a small bunch of keys.
+
+Whitson drew his revolver, and picking up the torch went into the
+terminal chamber. Four shots, fired in quick succession, reverberated
+immediately afterward through the cavern.
+
+Whitson then went outside to Langley, whom he found sitting down near
+the fire, looking if possible, more ghastly than before. The presence
+of Whitson seemed, however, to act on him as a kind of tonic, and he
+soon pulled himself together sufficiently to assist in piling a
+quantity of fuel upon the already sinking fire, which soon blazed
+brightly, lighting up the mouth of the cavern and the space in front
+of it. One of the bodies of the men who had been shot was lying on its
+side, with the face toward the fire. Whitson examined the mouth,
+pushing back the upper lip with a piece of stick. He found that the
+shape of the mouth and the development of the teeth were the same as
+Ghamba's. The other bodies were lying on their faces, so he did not
+trouble to examine them.
+
+Whitson then told Langley to follow him, and the two walked down the
+foot-path toward where they had left Ghamba. Him they found lying
+motionless in the position in which he had been left about an hour
+previously. They removed the sack and the gag and untied his feet,
+first taking the precaution to fasten the belt by one end to his bound
+hands, Whitson holding the other. They then signed to him to proceed
+toward the cave, and this he silently did, without making any
+resistance. He looked calmly at the three dead bodies, but said not a
+word. Langley held him, while Whitson again tied his feet together
+with the belt, and then they placed him with his back against a rock,
+facing the fire, which was still blazing brightly. His lips were drawn
+back in a ghastly, mirthless, grin, and the tusks were revealed from
+point to insertion.
+
+Langley questioned Ghamba, but he would not speak. After several
+attempts to force him to answer had been vainly made, Whitson said:
+
+"Now tell him that if he speaks and tells the whole truth he will only
+be shot, but if he does not speak he will be burned alive."
+
+This was interpreted, but the threat had no apparent effect. So
+Whitson seized Ghamba and dragged him to the fire, where he flung him
+down on the very edge of the glowing embers.
+
+"Now," said Whitson, holding him down with his foot, so that he got
+severely scorched, "for the last time, will you speak?"
+
+"Take me away from the fire, and I will speak," said Ghamba, in
+English.
+
+So they lifted him, and set him again with his back to the rock.
+
+"Now," said Whitson, "go ahead, and no nonsense!"
+
+"If I tell the whole truth," said Ghamba, still speaking English, and
+with a fair accent, "will you swear not to burn me, but to shoot me,
+so that I shall die at once?"
+
+"I will," said Whitson.
+
+"You too must swear," said Ghamba, looking at Langley.
+
+"Yes, I swear."
+
+"Very well," said Ghamba, "I will tell you everything, but you must
+both remember what you have sworn to."
+
+"Yes, all right," said Whitson. Ghamba then looked at Langley, who
+repeated the words.
+
+"I will tell you," said Ghamba, "all I can remember, and you can ask
+questions, which I shall answer truly. You have heard of Umdava, who
+used to eat men in Natal long ago, after the wars of Tshaka--well, he
+was my uncle. After Umdava had been killed and his people scattered,
+my father, with a few followers, came to live among these mountains.
+But we found that after having eaten human flesh we could enjoy no
+other food, so we caught people and ate them. These two men lying dead
+are my sons, and that woman is my daughter. My four wives were here
+to-night. They are very old women. Have you not seen them?" he asked,
+looking at Whitson.
+
+"They are in there; I shot them," said Whitson, pointing to the cave.
+
+"I had other children," continued Ghamba, quite unmoved, "but we ate
+them when food was scarce."
+
+"Have you always lived, all these years, on human flesh?" asked
+Whitson.
+
+"No, not always; but whenever we could obtain it we did so. There is
+other food in these mountains--honey, ants' eggs, roots, and fruit;
+besides game, which is, however, not very easy to catch. But we have
+often all had to go away and work when times have been bad. Besides, I
+have a herd of cattle at a Basuto kraal, and I have been in the habit
+of taking some of these now and then, and exchanging them for corn,
+which the women then went to fetch. But we have always tried to get
+people to eat, because we could enjoy no other kind of food. Sometimes
+we got them easily; and when we were very fortunate we used to dry
+part of the meat by hanging it up and lighting a fire underneath, with
+green wood, so as to make plenty of smoke."
+
+"Have you killed many white people?" asked Whitson.
+
+"Yes, a good number; but not, of course, as many as black. Lately we
+have always tried to catch whites, because when you have eaten white
+flesh for some time, the flesh of a native no longer satisfies you."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The flavour is not so strong."
+
+"Did you induce the other two policemen to come up by means of the
+story about Umhlonhlo?"
+
+"Yes, they came up just as you did, and my sons caught them with the
+thongs. Umhlonhlo has brought us plenty of food."
+
+"Were you able to take the cartridges out of their revolvers as you
+did out of mine?"
+
+"No, I had no opportunity; but it was not necessary, because my sons
+were so expert at throwing the thongs that they could always catch
+people over the arms, and thus render them unable to shoot."
+
+"How did they manage to become so expert?"
+
+"By continued practice. I used to walk up the path over and over
+again, and let them throw the thong over me. Then the woman was always
+there with the club, so that, if one of the thongs missed, she was
+ready to strike. I, also, was usually ready to help, in case of
+necessity."
+
+"Why did you think it necessary to take the cartridges out of my
+revolver?"
+
+"Because I feared you from the first, and were it not that he"--baring
+his teeth and glancing at Langley, who shuddered--"looked so nice, and
+that we wanted fresh meat so badly, I would not have risked bringing
+you. But it would have been all right if I had only let your revolver
+alone."
+
+"You say Umhlonhlo has brought you plenty of food; did you ever get
+any one besides ourselves and the other two policemen to come up here
+by telling them that story?"
+
+"Yes, two others--one a man who was searching for gold on the Free
+State side of the mountains, and the other a trader whom I met at
+Maseru. But these each came alone."
+
+"I see the buckle of a woman's belt in there. Whom did that belong to?
+You surely never got a white woman up here?"
+
+"Yes, we did," said Ghamba, with a horrible half-smile which bared the
+gums high above the sockets of his tusks. "She was a young girl who
+had strayed from a waggon passing over the mountain by the Ladysmith
+road, only a day's walk from here. I pretended to show her the
+shortest way to her waggon, and thus brought her as far as she could
+walk in this direction. I then killed her, and came up here and
+fetched my sons. We carried her up in the night. She was very young
+and plump, and I have never eaten anything that I enjoyed so much."
+(Whitson turned cold with horror. He remembered the girl's mysterious
+disappearance, and the fruitless searches undertaken in consequence.)
+"His flesh"--glancing again at Langley--"looks something like hers
+did, and I am sure it would taste just as nice. There was still a
+little of her left when I went away last week. If you will go in there
+and look where the rock is split on the right-hand side, you will--"
+But he did not finish the sentence, for a bullet from Whitson's
+revolver crushed through his brain, and he tumbled forward on his face
+into the fire.
+
+
+It was only after tremendous difficulty that Whitson and Langley
+succeeded in escaping from the mountains. However, on the evening of
+the third day after their adventure in the cave, they came in sight of
+the police camp. Whitson sat down on a stone, and motioned his
+companion to do the same.
+
+"See here, sonny," he said, "I want to have a short talk with you. I
+am a bit cross with you as the cause of my having been sucked in by
+that d--d murdering old walrus. You ought to know the inhabitants of
+this country better than a simple stranger like me, and so I took your
+lead. Now, another thing: you nearly bust us both by your blasted
+foolishness in going to sleep that day; but let that pass, because
+perhaps it would have been worse if we had not been put on our guard;
+not but that it would take a d--d smart cannibal to eat Hiram Whitson.
+But this is what I am coming to: you, my boy, are a darned sight too
+fond of hearing your own tongue clack. Now, take a warning from me,
+and don't let a word of what has happened since we left camp for
+Pietermaritzburg pass your lips. I did all the shooting, and I'm not a
+bit ashamed of it; but, by the eternal God, if you open your lips to a
+soul, I'll shoot you like a dog or a cannibal! Remember that, sonny,
+and say it quietly over to yourself the first time you feel that you
+want to blab. Now, shake hands."
+
+This was probably the longest speech that Whitson had ever made.
+
+About two years after the events narrated, Whitson took his discharge
+and returned to America. He left behind him a sealed packet addressed
+to his commanding officer, and which was not to be delivered for
+twelve months after his departure.
+
+Owing, however, to a strange combination of fortuitous circumstances,
+this packet never reached its proper destination; its wrapper, bearing
+the address, having been scorched off in a fire which took place in
+the house where it was left.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+Many people have heard or read of the cannibals of Natal, who turned
+large tracts of country into a shambles in the early part of this
+century, after Tshaka's impis had swept off all the cattle, and then
+kept the miserable people continually on the move so that they were
+unable to cultivate. One Umdava originated the practice of eating
+human flesh. Gathering together the fragments of four scattered
+tribes, he trained them to hunt human beings as others hunted game.
+This gang was a greater scourge to the country surrounding the present
+site of Pietermaritzburg than even Tshaka's murdering hordes. It was
+broken up in or about the year 1824, when the Europeans first came to
+the country, and the remnants of many scattered tribes returned and
+settled under their protection.
+
+All this is history with which most people in South Africa are
+familiar, but many do not know that some of the cannibals fled to
+Basutoland, where, among almost inaccessible mountains, they carried
+on their horrible practices for many years.
+
+It is a well-known fact that when men once surrender themselves to any
+unnatural and brutal vice, the gratification of the abnormal instinct
+thus acquired becomes the most imperative need of their nature. The
+Falkland Islands case, as bearing specially upon the foregoing
+narrative, may be mentioned. Some convicts escaped from the Falkland
+Island convict station, and succeeded in reaching the coast of
+Patagonia. They then endeavored to make their way to Montevideo, but
+having to keep along the shore so as to avoid the natives, who would
+have killed them had they ventured inland, were easily intercepted by
+the government cutter, which was always despatched in cases of the
+kind to head off fugitives upon their only possible course. Of the
+party only one man was found alive. In their dreadful need the men had
+cast lots as to who should be killed and eaten by the others, and this
+went on until only the one man remained. His sufferings had been so
+horrible that he was let off any further punishment, and simply
+brought back to the island to complete the term of his sentence. Some
+months after, this man induced another to escape with him in a boat,
+and, when the boat was overtaken, it was found that he had killed his
+companion for the purpose of eating the latter's flesh. This was
+apparent from the fact that the supply of food which the fugitives had
+taken with them was not exhausted.
+
+
+
+MARY MUSGRAVE
+
+BY
+
+ANONYMOUS
+
+
+
+"Nine carets ef it's a blessed one."
+
+"Scale 'im, an' ye'll find he's a half better. Clear es a bottle o'
+gin, an' flawless es the pope! Tommy Dartmoor, ye're in luck, s' welp
+me never ef ye ain't, an' that's a brilliant yer can show the polis
+an' not get time fer."
+
+Tommy Dartmoor, who owed his surname to a crown establishment within
+the restraining walls of which he had once enjoyed a temporary
+residence, growled out a recommendation to "stow that," and then
+added, "Boys, we'll wet this. Trek to Werstein's."
+
+Forthwith a crowd of dirty, tanned diggers turned their heads in the
+direction of Gustav Werstein's American Bar, and walked toward it as
+briskly as the heat and their weariness would admit of. The Israelite
+saw them coming, straightened himself out of the half-doze in which he
+had passed the baking afternoon, stopped down the tobacco in the
+porcelain bowl of his long-stemmed pipe with stumpy forefinger, and,
+twisting a cork off his corkscrew, stood in readiness.
+
+"Name yer pizons, boys, an' get outside 'em, wishin' all good luck to
+R'yal Straight; R'yal Straight bein' the name o' this yer stone given
+by Thomas D. Hesquire, original diskiverer an' present perprietor."
+
+The orders were given,--bass at five shillings a bottle, champagne
+(nee gooseberry) at five pounds, Cape smoke at two shillings per two
+fingers,--and, at a given signal, there was an inarticulate roar from
+dusty throats, an inversion of tumblers over thirsty mouths, and a
+second inversion over the ground to show that all the contents had
+disappeared.
+
+Satan, the one cat and only domestic pet of the camp, saw that there
+was a general treat going on, and bustling up for his drink took a can
+of condensed milk at six shillings. Other diggers came trooping in as
+the news spread, and Tommy Dartmoor, who was rapidly becoming mellow,
+for he drank half a tumbler of raw whisky with every one who nodded to
+him, stood them refreshments galore, while the greasy Jew began to see
+visions of his adopted fatherland in the near distance.
+
+So the Kaffirs, except those who had supplies of their own, kept sober
+and peaceful, while the higher order of the human race at Big Stone
+Hole, after the manner of their kind, began to squabble. It was
+natural for them to do so, perhaps, for the weather was so hot, and
+the liquors, for the most part, more so; and under these circumstances
+men do not always cast about them long for a casus belli. One or two
+minor brawls opened the ball, and Herr Gustav, scenting battle in the
+air, drew from a locker a card, which he balanced against the bottles
+on a shelf above his head. It read thus:
+
+GENTS IS REKESTED TO SHOOT
+CLEAR OF THE BARR-KEP.
+BROKIN GLAS MAY BE PADE FOR
+AT COST PRISE.
+
+and had been written for the German by a gentleman who had had some
+experience in Forty Rod Gulch, Nevada. The action elicited a
+contemptuous laugh from one or two of the new hands, but the oldsters
+began shifting sundry articles which depended from their belts into
+positions from which they might be handled at the shortest notice; and
+the black cat, more wise than any of them, having drunk his fill,
+stalked solemnly out into the security of the darkness.
+
+The sun went down,--went out with a click, some one declared,--and, as
+no twilight interposed between daylight and darkness in the country
+which Big Stone Hole ornamented, Herr Gustav lit his two paraffin-
+lamps. Neither boasted more than a one-inch wick, and, as their
+glasses were extremely smoky, the illumination was not brilliant; but
+it sufficed to show the flushed, angry faces of a couple of men
+standing in the centre of the room, with all the others clustered
+round, watching eagerly. One was the Scholar. The other was a burly
+giant, whose missing left little finger caused him to be nicknamed the
+Cripple. About what they had originally fallen out was not clear to
+any one, to themselves least of all. As the case stood when the second
+lamp was lit, Scholar had called Cripple a something-or-other liar,
+and Cripple, who was not inventive, had retorted by stigmatising
+Scholar as another. Further recriminations followed, and their pistols
+were drawn; but as the audience had a strong objection to
+indiscriminate shooting, by which it was not likely to benefit, the
+belligerents were seized. No one was unsportsmanlike enough to wish to
+stop the fight, and Jockey Bill, giving voice to the general wish of
+the meeting, proposed that the gents be fixed up agin' a couple o'
+posts outside, where they might let daylight into each other without
+lead-poisoning casual spectators.
+
+The motion was acted on, and after rectifying a slight omission on the
+Cripple's part--he had forgotten to put caps on the nipples of his
+revolver--the pair of them were seated upon upturned barrels some ten
+yards apart, each with a lamp at his feet, and told to begin when they
+saw fit to do so. The swarthy, bearded diggers grouped themselves on
+either side, and the cat, emerging from his retreat, scrambled on to
+the shoulder of one of them, fully as curious as the rest to "see the
+shootin'." It was a weird sight,--dust, scorched grass, empty tins,
+rude hovels, piles of debris, African moonlight,--yet, except,
+perhaps, in the eyes of the newest comers, there was nothing strange
+in it. The others were too wrapped up in what was going to take place
+to see anything quaint in their every-day surroundings. There was no
+theatre in the camp. The little impromptu drama riveted all attention.
+
+But before the duel commenced, a galloping horse, which had approached
+over the grassy veldt unnoticed during the excitement, drew up with a
+crash between the two combatants, and its rider, raising his hand to
+command attention, cried:
+
+"Boys, there's a white woman comin'!"
+
+"A white woman!" was chorused in various tones of disbelief. "What,
+here? White woman comin' here, Dan?"
+
+And then some one inquired if she was a Boer.
+
+"Boer--no," replied Dan; "English--English as I am; leastways
+Englisher, bein' Amurrican-born myself. Overtook her et Hottentot
+Drift. Thort I'd spur on an' tell yer. We'd do wi' a clean-up, some on
+us."
+
+Dan spoke indistinctly, as a bullet had lately disarranged some of his
+teeth; but his words had a wonderful effect.
+
+Each man began instinctively to tidy himself. The would-be duellists,
+forgetting their quarrel, stuck the revolvers in their belts and
+followed the general example. The Cripple hied him to the store, and
+after breaking down the door abstracted the only blacking-brush in the
+camp,--putting down a sovereign on the counter in exchange for it,--
+and set to polishing his high boots as if a fortune depended on their
+brightness. The Scholar bought Herr Gustav's white shirt for a fiver,
+threatening to murder its owner if he did not render it up. And
+Partridge, a good man from Norfolk, with a regrettable weakness for
+shooting other people's game, induced a friend to denude him of his
+flowing locks by means of a clasp-knife and a hunk of wood, as no
+scissors were procurable.
+
+The wardrobes of Big Stone Hole were stocked more with a view to
+strict utility than variety or ornamentation, and the slender
+resources of the store utterly gave out under the sudden strain that
+was put upon them. In every direction grimy, unkempt men might be seen
+attempting to beautify themselves. Here was one enduring agonies from
+a razor that would scarcely whittle a stick; here another recalling
+the feel of a cake of soap; there a great fellow pulling faces as he
+struggled to get the teeth of a comb into his shock of hair; there
+another brushing the clay from his moleskin trousers with a tuft of
+stiff grass.
+
+It seemed to these men ages since they had last seen a woman in the
+flesh,--Kaffir women don't count; they are not women, merely Kaffirs,
+--and, with the natural instinct of males of every species, they set
+about pluming their feathers.
+
+These operations, though speedy as might be, were necessarily
+prolonged, for most of the men required several buckets of water over
+the head before they felt fit for such unaccustomed exercises, and
+they were scarcely finished before the creaking of wheels and the
+cries of the voorlooper as he urged his oxen announced that the wagon
+was within earshot. Up it came, the great tilt gleaming white in the
+moonlight, and every eye was fixed expectantly on the dark chasm
+within. The driver, puffed up with his own importance, cracked his
+long whip and deigned not to notice the men whom he usually greeted
+with a friendly hail, and the Hottentot boy ahead, imitating his
+master, vouchsafed no explanation. With more deathly slowness than
+usual did the lumbering vehicle crawl along until the tired cattle
+pulled up before the door of the American Bar. Then there was a rush
+and a bit of a scuffle for the honour of handing the woman out. The
+Cripple was the fortunate man, and, after assisting her to the ground,
+waved his tattered hat toward the gleaming open doorway. But he did
+not speak. Words were beyond him. Indeed, the diggers, who were none
+of them particularly remarkable for taciturnity as a general thing,
+seemed, with one exception, to be stricken dumb. But the Scholar
+proved himself equal to the occasion, and with courtly phrase bade the
+new-comer welcome to the camp. He had always been a popular man among
+women in his palmier days, though openly holding rather a poor opinion
+of them; and as the one before him now was neat of speech and comely
+of form, he was not at all averse to enjoying her society and
+conversation.
+
+"I should be much obliged if you would direct me to a hotel," she
+said, after taking a look around the cheap gaudiness of the saloon.
+
+"I'm sorry to say that we have no hotel here as yet, Miss--er--?"
+
+"Musgrave. Miss Mary Musgrave"--with a little bow. "But I heard that a
+German had started a hotel here."
+
+"No; there is nothing but this. That"--pointing to Herr Gustave, who
+was regarding the newcomer with an evil eye--"that is the German."
+
+Miss Musgrave appeared distressed.
+
+"Then where can I go?" she asked. "Are there any lodgings to be had?"
+
+"The lady may have my place," chorused three eager voices, and every
+man in the room repeated the offer.
+
+She thanked them with a pretty smile and one comprehensive bow, and
+looked up at the Scholar for help.
+
+"I would offer you my hut if it were not such a wretched one. But, as
+it is, I should advise you to take this man's"--and he pointed to
+Tommy Dartmoor.
+
+"Why, mine's twenty carats better than hisn!" exclaimed the Cripple.
+
+"And mine better 'n either," growled Dan.
+
+"Mine's the best of the lot."
+
+"No, it isn't; mine is," yelled others, till there was a general roar,
+which caused Miss Musgrave to look frightened and shrink nearer to the
+Scholar, and that gentleman to raise his hand for silence.
+
+"Look here," said he, "we'll pick out the twelve best, and their
+owners can cut with one another from a pack of cards."
+
+After some discussion twelve were settled upon, but the number was
+immediately raised to thirteen to prevent Jockey Bill disgracing the
+camp by shooting before a lady. A pack of cards was placed on the bar,
+and each man chose one, holding his selection face downward till all
+were ready. Then the Scholar said, "Turn," and there were exhibited
+five aces, two kings, a queen, three knaves, and two smaller cards.
+This was awkward, to say the least of it, and, while sarcastic
+laughter rippled among the spectators, there was an instinctive
+movement of right hands toward the back of the belt on the part of
+each of the thirteen.
+
+But the Scholar's voice, full of remonstrance, said, "Boys, you're
+being looked at," and there was a regretful sigh or two, but no
+bloodshed.
+
+Miss Musgrave gazed inquiringly from one to another, and the Scholar,
+laying his hand on her arm, whispered something in her ear. She
+smiled, whispered back, and was answered, and then, stripping off a
+pair of well-fitting fawn gloves, she took the cards in a pretty
+little white hand, and dealt out one to each of the competitors with
+charming clumsiness.
+
+"Ain't touched a keard afore, bless her," whispered Euchre Buck,
+giving his neighbor Dan a nudge in the ribs to call attention to this
+wonderful piece of girlish innocence. "Square a deal es George
+Washington mought ha' made." Then, as the greasy pasteboards were
+turned up, and his neighbour was handed the ace of clubs, he raised
+his voice and yelled out, "Bully for you, Dan! Cut away an' clar yer
+cabin out."
+
+Away scampered Dan out into the darkness, with the rest of the crew at
+his heels. Their home comforts were very small, poor fellows; but each
+gave of his best, though the gifts were often incongruous enough. In
+half an hour the cabin was fitted out with a small cracked looking-
+glass, two combs, an old hair-brush,--still wet from the wash,--a
+pail, a frying-pan, three kettles, two three-legged stools, and so
+many blankets that some were requisitioned to carpet the floor. The
+whole crowd accompanied Miss Musgrave to her door and gave her a cheer
+by way of good-night. She bowed to them, smiling her thanks, and
+looking, as they thought, entrancingly lovely as she stood there, with
+the pale moonbeams falling full on her.
+
+Then she turned to go in, but as Euchre Buck stepped forward with an
+admonishing cough, she waited and looked round at him.
+
+"Miss," said he, holding out a big revolver in his hard fist, "you
+take this yer gun, an' ef any one whistles, or otherwise disturbs you,
+let a hole into him straight away, an' we'll see him buried decent."
+
+But Miss Musgrave courteously, and with profuse thanks, refused the
+offer, and, saying that she had perfect confidence in all who were
+around her, gave Euchre Buck a bewitching smile, went inside, and
+closed the door after he.
+
+Then the diggers returned to Gustav Werstein's American Bar and
+discussed the new arrival.
+
+"I known Noomarket an' Hascot an' Hepson, an' all the places where
+swells goes in England," said Jockey Bill, enthusiastically; "but
+never one come there as pretty as she, stop my license if ther' did."
+
+"Grand eyes, hain't she?" said Tommy Dartmoor. "Regular fust-water
+'uns. Here's to 'em!"
+
+"And-a-hoof! See it peep below her gownd. S' welp me ef it wer' es big
+as my 'bacca-box!"
+
+"An' 'er close, gentlemen! Made to measure, every thread on 'em, I
+allow."
+
+"She's a lady, boys," exclaimed he who had offered to see after a
+funeral, "a reg'lar slap-up, high-toned, blow-yer-eyes-don't-touch-me
+lady; an' as she sees fit to do the civil to this fellar"--striking
+himself on the chest--"he's just going to drop his professional name,
+an' arsk yer to call him Mister Samuel K. Gregson, Esquire. Play on
+that."
+
+Next morning the inhabitants of Big Stone Hole were startled by
+reading this announcement outside the cabin which Dan had resigned to
+Miss Musgrave:
+
+SINGING AND MUSIC TAUGHT.
+LITERARY WORK DONE.
+
+It was printed on a card, which was affixed to the door by means of a
+drawing-pin, and from within came the sound of a contralto voice
+singing to a guitar accompaniment. One by one the male residents of
+Big Stone Hole drew near to that iron-roofed hut and stopped to
+listen; but after commenting on the innovation in gleeful whispers--
+for guitar had never twanged in that part of Africa before--they moved
+on to their work. No consideration could cause them to neglect that.
+They might fritter away the dull, rough gems when they had found them,
+but the lust of handling diamonds once was the strongest passion they
+knew. And so the day's toil was not curtailed; but at the conclusion
+Miss Musgrave had an application for instruction in music from every
+man in the camp, with one exception. This one defaulter was Euchre
+Buck. He owned to having no ear for music--thereby exhibiting more
+honesty than many of the others--and confessed to knowing only two
+tunes, one of which was "Hail Columbia," and the other--wasn't; and so
+he said he wanted some "literary work done." He proposed to Miss
+Musgrave that she should write a history of his life at half a guinea
+a page, thereby--cute Yankee that he was--thinking to appropriate the
+whole of her time.
+
+But embarrassed by all these calls upon her, and obviously unable to
+satisfy each of them, Miss Musgrave turned for help to the Scholar,
+whom she appeared to regard as her special adviser; and he, promising
+a solution of the difficulty in half an hour, drew off the whole crowd
+to the American Bar, where the question was thrashed out in all its
+points.
+
+It was clearly evident that Miss Musgrave could not surrender to each
+individual the whole of her evening, even if any one had been willing
+to let his neighbor monopolise it, which no one was; and therefore it
+was necessary to formulate some scheme by which her talents might be
+distributed over a larger area. But what the scheme should be was not
+settled all in a minute. One man wanted to hear her sing, another to
+hear her talk, another was willing to give five pounds an hour for the
+privilege of talking to her. After a lengthened discussion, which was
+excited throughout, and at times verged on the warlike, it was decided
+to effect a compromise--subject, of course, to Miss Musgrave's
+inclinations; and a deputation was sent to learn her views on the
+subject.
+
+There was no assembly-room in the place, excepting Werstein's saloon,
+--which, of course, was not available for such a purpose,--and so it
+was proposed to her, with much humility, that she should take up her
+position in the evenings on a chair outside her hut, and there
+discourse such vocal and instrumental music as she saw fit,
+interlarding the same with friendly conversation. What was she to talk
+about? Anything--absolutely anything. They didn't mind what it was, so
+long as they heard her voice. Five shillings, the committee had
+decided, was to be paid by every man who came within earshot. And any
+one who wanted a free list was requested to argue the matter out with
+Euchre Buck.
+
+This call upon her powers seemed to take Miss Musgrave aback.
+
+"I have never sung in public," she pleaded, rather nervously. "Indeed,
+my voice is not good enough for it; really it isn't. Only I thought I
+could teach a little perhaps, and that is why I came here. You see,
+mother, is an invalid, and we were so very poor that--"
+
+"Miss," broke in Jockey Bill, "call it ten bob a 'ead, an' just 'um to
+us."
+
+"Oh no, Mr. William, it was not the money that I thought about;
+indeed, five shillings would be far too much. But if you think that I
+should be able to amuse you at all, I would do my very best--believe
+me, I would."
+
+"Miss," growled Dan, with a clumsy endeavour to chase away her
+diffidence, "all we asks is fer you to sit near us fer a spell. Ef you
+sings or plays, we'd be proud; ef you just looks an' talks, we'd be
+pleased."
+
+So in the end Miss Musgrave yielded to the wishes of the community,
+and the nightly conclave in the American Bar became so much a thing of
+the past that Gustav Werstein was heard to threaten another
+emigration. The songs were to the diggers new, and yet not new. There
+was nothing of the music-hall type about them; they were nearly all
+old-fashioned ditties. She sang to them of "Barbara Allen" and "Sally
+in our Alley"; she gave them "Cheer, Boys, Cheer," and called for a
+chorus; she sang "The Message," "The Arrow and the Song"; and she
+brought back memories of other days when Africa was to them a mere
+geographical expression--of days when that something had not happened
+which had sent them away from home.
+
+Sunday came, the fifth day after her arrival, and it differed from the
+usual Sabbath of Big Stone Hole. Sunday had been observed before by
+the biggest drinking bout of the week, and a summary settlement of the
+previous six days' disputes. Now, to the huge surprise of the Kaffirs,
+and to the still greater surprise of themselves, these diamond-diggers
+sang hymns at intervals during the day, and refrained from indulging
+in the orthodox carouse till after Miss Musgrave had retired for the
+night. It was a wonderful change.
+
+During the next week a fall of earth took place in Tommy Dartmoor's
+claim. Two Kaffirs were killed; and when the proprietor himself was
+extricated from the debris of blue clay which held him down, he was
+found to have a broken arm, besides other serious injuries.
+
+"Don't let on to her," he managed to gasp out to his rescuers, wishing
+to spare Miss Musgrave's nerves a shock.
+
+But she saw the men bearing him to his hut, joined them, and insisted
+on being installed as sole nurse forthwith.
+
+Twenty other men would willingly have broken an arm for such a reward;
+and the recklessness displayed during the next few days was something
+awful. But she saw that too,--little escaped those big blue eyes,--
+and, ascribing it to drink, gave a pretty strong lecture on the
+bibulous habits of Big Stone Hole, at her next concert.
+
+There was an earnest meeting in the American Bar that night, at which
+the following motion was put and carried unanimously: "On and after
+this date, any drunken man is liable to be shot at sight, unless his
+friends can prove that he has dug over three carats of diamonds during
+the day." And then, like other reformers, they went on to more
+sweeping measures: "Only knife-fighting to take place in the camp. All
+disputes with pistols, unless of a very pressing nature, to be settled
+out of earshot of Dan's house." There were even some hints of
+appointing a closing-time for the saloon--"it would make the place so
+much more like home." But the promoter eventually withdrew his
+suggestion, as it was justly felt that such a motion would interfere
+with the liberty of the subject too much. But a storm of cheers burst
+forth when it was proposed to transfer the diamond-safe from
+Werstein's keeping to a corner of the new goddess's shrine.
+
+Even Satan, the cat, joined in the general adoration, and, more
+favoured than the rest, enjoyed at times a chaste salute from Miss
+Musgrave's ripe-red lips.
+
+Never, in so short a space of time, had a community been more changed
+for the better than was that of Big Stone Hole. Never had woman's
+humanising influence made itself more clearly felt. The azure cloud of
+blasphemy that hung over the workings and the rest of the camp was
+replaced again by the normal dust. Each man tried to beautify the
+inside of his shanty to the best of his means and ideas, for there was
+no knowing when the only "she" would take it into her pretty,
+capricious head to pay a call. In this latter line the Scholar had a
+decided pull. Education had taught him taste; necessity, handiness;
+and by aid of the two he transformed his rude dwelling into something
+approaching the rooms in which he used to dawdle away the happy hours,
+time ago. It was partly drawing-room, partly curiosity-shop. Cups,
+saucers, and spoons appeared as if by magicians' call, and one blazing
+afternoon the news flashed round the diamond-pits that Miss Musgrave
+was "taking afternoon tea with the Scholar." But when the Scholar saw
+the dismay his simple act had spread around him, he dissipated it with
+a kindly laugh and a few reassuring words.
+
+"Don't mind me, boys. I was only doing the civil in a purely platonic
+manner. Miss Musgrave is nothing to me, nor am I anything to her.
+Heaven forbid! I'm too hard a bargain for any girl. If any one of you
+marries her I'll act as his best man if he asks me to, and wish him
+every felicity without a thought of regret."
+
+"Bully for the Scholar!" yelled the delighted crowd; and Miss
+Musgrave's smiles were more sought after than ever.
+
+So things went on day after day, week after week, till Miss Musgrave
+became little short of an autocratic empress. But still she showed no
+signs of taking unto herself a consort; she kept all men at a cousinly
+distance, and those who felt intimate enough to address her as "Miss
+Mary" accounted themselves uncommonly fortunate. Thus the little
+machine of state worked perfectly harmoniously, and Big Stone Hole was
+as steady and prosperous a settlement as need be.
+
+Had these diggers refreshed their minds by looking back for historical
+parallels, they might have been prepared in some degree for Miss
+Musgrave's exit from among them, but as none of them indulged in such
+retrospections the manner of it took the camp somewhat by surprise.
+
+It was first discovered in this wise. Work was over for the day. The
+Kaffirs had been searched and had returned to their kraal. Pipes were
+being lit after the evening meal, and a picturesque assembly was
+grouping itself in an expectant semicircle on the sun-baked turf in
+front of Miss Musgrave's dwelling. She was usually outside to welcome
+the first comers, and her absence naturally formed the staple topic of
+conversation. Digger after digger arrived, threw himself down, and
+joined in the general wonderment as to why Miss Mary wasn't there, and
+at last some one hazarded a suggestion that she "must be asleep."
+There was a general epidemic of noisy coughing for a full minute, and
+then silence for another, but no sound from within the hut.
+
+"Perhaps she's ill," was the next surmise.
+
+After the etiquette to be followed had been strictly discussed, and a
+rigid course of procedure set down, the Scholar got up and knocked at
+the door. He received no answer, and so knocked again--knocked several
+times, in fact, and then rattled the handle vigorously, but without
+result.
+
+"Better open it," said a voice.
+
+And he did so; and after looking inside, announced:
+
+"She's not there."
+
+At this moment Dan came up.
+
+"My ole mar' 's gone," he said; "an' she ain't stampeded, neither, but
+was stole. Tote-rope's been untied, an' saddle an' bridle took as
+well."
+
+There was uncomfortable silence, which the Scholar broke by a low,
+long-drawn whistle.
+
+"Boys," said he, "let's look inside the safe."
+
+The three men who held the keys brought them up, the bolts were shot,
+and the massive door swung back. There was every man's little sack
+with his name on it; but somehow or other the sacks looked limper than
+of yore. Each one was eagerly clutched and examined, and many a groan
+and not a few curses went up on the still night air as it was found
+that every sack save Dan's had been relieved of the more valuable part
+of its contents.
+
+So much heart-breaking labour under the burning sun thrown away for
+nothing; the dreary work to commence afresh, almost from the
+beginning! Had the thief been any ordinary one, the denunciation would
+have been unbounded; but no one lifted his tongue very loudly against
+Mary Musgrave. Yet mounted men were despatched on the three trails to
+bring back the booty if possible, and the rest moved dejectedly toward
+their old club. The greasy Jew did not attempt to conceal his
+exultation. He served his customers with his wicked old face glowing
+with smiles, and when a moment's breathing-time came he observed:
+
+"We all 'az hour lettle surbrizes in dis wairld, an' I most confaiss I
+am asdonished myself to lairn that Mess Mosgrave is a thief--" But
+here a crashing among the glassware announced that Tommy Dartmoor had
+begun shooting with his left hand, and Herr Gustave sputtered out from
+behind the fingers he held before his face, "Ach Gott! I say nozzing
+more!"
+
+
+
+GREGORIO
+
+BY
+
+PERCY HEMINGWAY
+
+
+I
+AT THE PARADISO
+
+The Cafe Paradiso was full of people, for the inhabitants of
+Alexandria had dined, and the opera season was over. The seats at
+every table were occupied, and the fumes of smoke from a hundred
+cigars partly hid the ladies of the orchestra. As the waiters pushed
+aside the swing-doors of the buffet and staggered into the salon with
+whisky, absinthe, and coffee, the click of billiard-balls was heard.
+The windows facing the sea were wide open, for the heat was intense,
+and the murmur of the waves mingled with the plaintive voices of the
+violins.
+
+Seated by a table at the far end of the hall, Gregorio Livadas hummed
+softly an accompaniment to Suppe's "Poete et Paysan," puffing from
+time to time a cloudlet of blue smoke from his mouth. When the music
+ceased he joined in the applause, leaning back happily in his chair as
+the musicians prepared to repeat the last movement. Meanwhile his eyes
+wandered idly over the faces of his neighbors.
+
+When the last chord was struck he saw the women hurry down from the
+platform and rush toward the tables where their acquaintances sat. He
+heard them demand beer and coffee, and they drank eagerly, for
+fiddling in that heat was thirsty work. He watched the weary waiters
+hastening from table to table, and he heard the voices around him grow
+more animated and the laughter more frequent. One man was fastening a
+spray of flowers on the ample bosom of the flautiste, while another
+sipped the brown lager from the glass of the big drum, and the old
+wife of the conductor left her triangle and cymbals to beg some roses
+from an Arab flower-girl. Truly the world was enjoying itself, and
+Gregorio smiled dreamily, for the sight of so much gaiety pleased him.
+He wished one of the women would come and talk to him; he would have
+liked to chat with the fair-haired girl who played the first violin so
+well. He began to wonder why she preferred that ugly Englishman with
+his red face and bald head. He caught snatches of their conversation.
+Bah! how uninteresting it was! for they could barely understand each
+other. What pleasure did she find in listening to his bad French? and
+in her native Hungarian he could not even say, "I love." Why had she
+not come to him, Gregorio Livadas, who could talk to her well and
+would not mumble like an idiot and look red and uncomfortable! Then he
+saw she was drinking champagne, and he sighed. Ah, yes, these English
+were rich, and women only cared for money; they were unable to give up
+their luxuries for the sake of a man.
+
+But at this thought Gregorio blushed a little. After all, there was
+one woman--the only woman he ought to think of--who was not afraid of
+hardship for the sake of her husband. He tried to excuse himself by
+arguing that the music had excited him; but he felt a little ashamed,
+and as a sop to his not yet quite murdered conscience got up and left
+the cafe.
+
+When he turned into the Place Mehemet Ali he remembered suddenly that
+he had wasted his evening. It was ten o'clock, too late to set about
+the business he had intended. He was angry with himself now as well as
+ashamed. He wandered up and down the square, looking at the statue of
+the great khedive, silhouetted against the moonlight, and cursed at
+his misfortunes.
+
+Why should he, Gregorio Livadas, be in need of money? He had worked
+hard, but without success. He could have borne his ill luck had he
+alone been the sufferer, but he must consider his child--and, of
+course, his wife too. He was really fond of his wife in a way. But he
+smiled proudly as he thought of his son, for whom he schemed out a
+great future. He and Xantippe would train the boy so carefully that he
+would grow up to be a great man, and, what was more, a rich man. How
+they would laugh, all three, as they sat in the splendid cafes over
+their wine, at the hardships the father had endured! Still he must not
+forget the present, and he sorely needed money. He would go to Amos
+again. Amos was a rich man, very rich, and a filthy Jew. Amos could
+easily spare him some money and renew the last loan. He was going to
+be successful now and would be able to pay good interest. What better
+investment could Amos have? Surely none. He was going to set up a cafe
+with the money at Tanta, or Zagazig, or even Benhur,--yes, Benhur was
+the best,--where there were few competitors. Then he would make a
+fortune, as other Greeks had done, and Amos would be paid in full. He
+was not extravagant, no; he had the business instincts of his race.
+Half these rich merchants of Alexandria had begun as he would begin;
+he would succeed as they had succeeded. The future was really hopeful,
+if he could only borrow a little capital.
+
+With these thoughts surging through his brain Gregorio paced up and
+down the pavements. At last he turned into the Rue des Soeurs and
+started slowly toward his home.
+
+This street, the sink of Alexandria, was at its gayest. The cafes
+where cheap liquor is sold were crowded. Soldiers and sailors, natives
+and the riffraff of half a dozen nations, jostled one another. The
+twanging of guitars and the tinkling of pianos was heard from every
+house. Women, underclothed and overpainted, leaned from the upper
+windows and made frequent sallies into the street to capture their
+prey. Loud voices sang lusty English choruses and French
+chansonnettes, and Neapolitan songs tried to assert themselves
+whenever the uproar ceased for a moment. Every one talked his, or her,
+own tongue, and gesture filled in the gaps when words were wanting.
+All seemed determined to degrade themselves as much as possible, and
+nearly every one seemed supremely happy.
+
+Occasionally there was a fight, and knives were used with unerring
+skill; but the mounted police who patrolled the streets, though
+overtaxed, managed to preserve a certain amount of order.
+
+Gregorio took very little notice of the scenes through which he
+passed. He knew every inch and corner of the quarter that had been his
+home for years, and was familiar with most of its inhabitants. He
+sighed a little as he thought of the money being lost and won in the
+stuffy ill-lighted rooms at the back of the houses, shut out from view
+of the authorities. Like most of his race, he was fond of the
+excitement of gambling. But of what use were regrets and sighs? he had
+no money, and must needs go home. It was vain to try and borrow or to
+ask credit for his losses; in these gambling hells what is lost must
+be immediately paid, for tempers are inflamed by drink and knives are
+worn at each player's belt.
+
+But he sighed, none the less, at the hard necessity that compelled him
+to pass down the street without once entering the doors of a tavern.
+It was very hot, and he had smoked many cigarettes. He would have been
+glad to call for a drink. The tavern-keepers, though they were his
+friends, expected to be paid. One or two women beckoned to him, who
+would have willingly offered him wine, but he was proud enough to
+ignore them.
+
+He became more moody and dejected as he went along, silent and sober
+amid so much revelry. When he reached his house he saw a drunken man
+lying on the threshold asleep. He stooped to look into his face and
+recognised an Englishman, the foreman of some tramp in the harbour. He
+kicked the recumbent form testily as he strode over it.
+
+"These English, what beasts they are!" he growled, "and I--I have not
+a piastre for a single glass of wine."
+
+
+II
+CONCERNING A DEBT
+
+Gregorio found, on entering his house, that his wife was already in
+bed. He went into the tiny kitchen and saw a plate of macaroni ready
+for his supper. He tried to eat some, but it stuck in his throat. He
+took a bottle of cheap Cretan wine from a shelf and drank from it; but
+the wine was sour, and he spat it from his mouth with a curse.
+
+Taking up the lamp, he went into the bedroom. His wife was fast asleep
+with the boy in her arms. For a moment a smile flickered round
+Gregorio's mouth as he looked at them. Then he took off his boots and
+his coat, blew out the lamp, and lay beside them. He was very tired
+after his long tramp in the hot streets, but he could not sleep.
+Angrily he tossed from side to side and closed his eyes tightly; but
+it was no good, sleep would not come.
+
+At midnight he heard a call to prayer chanted from the minaret of a
+tiny mosque in the neighbourhood. The muezzin's voice irritated him.
+He did not wish to pray, and he did want to sleep. He swore that it
+was insanity for these fools of Mohammedans to declare that prayer was
+better than sleep.
+
+Then the thoughts that had agitated him during the walk returned to
+him. The Rue des Soeurs was still noisy with merry-makers, and it
+seemed to him that if he could only join them he would be happy. But
+he had no money, and one can do nothing without money!
+
+Then there came back to him the face of the Englishman he had seen
+talking to the violinist of the Paradiso. He hated the man because he
+was ugly and rich. These English were all rich, and yet they seemed to
+him a miserable race, mere ignorant bullies. He remembered how often
+he had come to the help of the English travellers who filled Egypt.
+Why had he, he asked himself, for the sake of a miserable reward,
+prevented them being cheated, when he, with all his talents, was
+condemned to starve? Even his child, he thought, would grow to hate
+him if he remained poor. He must get money. Amos would have to lend
+him some. The Jews were unpopular among the Greeks; it were wise to
+keep on good terms with them, as Amos would find out.
+
+At last he fell asleep.
+
+In the morning his troubles began again. There was no coffee, and only
+a little Arab bread, and when that was done they must starve if they
+could not get some money. Gregorio tore off a bit of bread and ate it
+slowly, looking at his wife, who sat weeping beside him.
+
+"I shall go to Amos," he said, firmly.
+
+"Ah, yes, to Amos," Xantippe answered quietly; "but it will be no
+good."
+
+"Why no good?"
+
+"Because you owe him money, and he will give you no more till he is
+paid."
+
+"But we cannot pay him. He must let us have some. If not--" and
+Gregorio raised threatening.
+
+His wife smiled sadly and kissed him.
+
+"You will not frighten Amos, my love. When I told him the child had
+been ill, he only laughed."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Yesterday."
+
+"Then he had been here?"
+
+"He came last night to ask for his money. I told him we had none, and
+he laughed and said we must get some. He told me I might get some if I
+cared to. He said I could make, oh, so much!"
+
+Gregorio scowled savagely. "The filthy Jew! he said that? Never,
+never, never!"
+
+"But we must get some money," the woman sobbed, "if only for our son's
+sake, Gregorio. But not that way?"
+
+"No, not that way," he replied, savagely.
+
+"When shall you go to him?"
+
+"Now."
+
+And taking up his hat he rushed into the street. He was terribly
+angry, not so much at the purport of the Jew's speech as at the man
+who made it. He loathed the Jews, and felt insulted when spoken to by
+one; it was a terrible matter to ask this man for help, but it was
+intolerable that his wife should suffer insult. And yet the child must
+be fed. Yes, she had said that, and it was true. They must make
+sacrifices for the child.
+
+He soon reached the Jew's house, and was shown by a richly clad
+servant into the room where Amos sat. Amos was an old man, tall and
+strong, with a long bushy beard, in which his fingers continually
+played; and his eyes were sharp and brilliant and restless, a strange
+contrast to his stately bearing and measured movements. He rose from
+his cushions as Gregorio entered, and saluted him courteously,
+motioning him to a seat. Then, having resettled himself, he clapped
+his hands together smartly and ordered the servant who answered the
+summons to bring in coffee and pipes.
+
+Gregorio was rather overawed at the luxury he saw around him, and he
+felt the stern-looking, polite old man would be a difficult person to
+deal with. As he puffed at his tube he considered carefully what words
+he should use.
+
+For some time neither spoke, but Amos was the first to break the
+silence.
+
+"You heard I was at your house last night, and so have come to pay
+me?"
+
+"Yes, I heard you were at my house and that you wanted to be paid. You
+are a rich man, and I am poor."
+
+"Nay, I am not rich; they lie who say I am rich."
+
+"It is twenty pounds I owe you, is it not?"
+
+"Yes, twenty pounds. It is a large sum, and I have dealt generously
+with you. I am now in need of it myself."
+
+"I am a poor man."
+
+"You have not the money, eh, my friend?"
+
+"I have not the money. But I will pay you if you will lend me some
+more. I shall be successful now; only twenty pounds more."
+
+Amos appeared unmoved at the tremor in Gregorio's voice. His eyes
+rested coldly on the face of his client, while the unfortunate Greek
+continued to speak rapidly of his troubles and hopes. He smiled
+sarcastically as Gregorio spoke of the certainty of making his fortune
+at Benhur, and remained quite unmoved at the story of the sufferings
+of a woman and child from hunger and want.
+
+"Your wife is beautiful," was all he answered when Gregorio paused for
+a moment. At these words, however, he half rose from his place and
+clinched his hands savagely. But he sank back again with the
+remembrance that a show of temper would not advance his cause.
+
+"Very beautiful," he answered, chokingly; "would you see her starve?"
+
+"She is not my wife," said Amos, quietly. Then he continued slowly,
+pausing at intervals to puff out a cloud of smoke from his mouth:
+
+"You have owed me this money a long time. I want it, and I will have
+it. Even in Egypt there is law. You do not like us Jews, but the law
+will protect me as long as I am rich enough to buy justice. In three
+days you will pay me this money. I have been generous to you; now I
+will be generous no longer. If I am not paid I will take measures to
+recover my loss. You will sleep in the streets like the Arabs, my
+friend; but the weather is warm. It is early summer, so you will
+scarcely feel the exposure. In three days you will come and pay me."
+
+"But how am I to get the money? If you would lend me only a few pounds
+I would repay you all I owe."
+
+"Already you owe me more than you can pay. You can make money. You are
+married. These Christian women are worse than the Arabs; do I not see
+them as I come home in the evening from my business? It is not right
+to borrow and not repay. I need my money. How can I have my coffee and
+my pipe unless I have money?"
+
+Gregorio listened with growing anger, and finally rose from his seat
+and shook his fist in the old man's face.
+
+"You shall be paid," he shouted, "you shall be paid!"
+
+"Anger is useless, my friend."
+
+And as Gregorio left the house Amos smiled and stroked his beard.
+"Truly," he thought, "these Christians hate us, but we have them in
+our power. It is pleasant to be hated and yet to know that it is to us
+they must cringe when they are in need; and it is very pleasant to
+refuse. My friend Gregorio is not happy now that he is struggling in
+my grasp."
+
+As for Gregorio, he wandered away toward the harbour, kicking savagely
+at the refuse scattered along the pavement. He did not know how to set
+about earning the requisite sum. It was no good applying to the hotels
+or tourist agencies, for there were few visitors in the city and
+dragomen were therefore not needed.
+
+His friends were too poor to help him, and the consul was unable to do
+much for him, there were so many poor Greeks who wanted help.
+Meanwhile there was no food at home and no drink; even the necessaries
+of life were lacking.
+
+On arriving at his home he found his wife and child huddled in a
+corner crying for food. They ran toward him as he entered, but the
+hope in their faces quickly faded at the sight of him.
+
+"It's no good," Gregorio growled; "Amos refuses to advance a piastre
+and says I must pay all I owe in three days."
+
+"It is impossible to sleep when one is hungry," said Gregorio that
+night to his wife, who lay awake, weeping, beside him.
+
+
+III
+OF FAILURE AND A RESOLVE
+
+Gregorio's dreams, when he did sleep, were none of the pleasantest,
+and when he woke up, from time to time, he heard his wife weeping. In
+wondering what he should say to comfort her he fell asleep again, and
+sleeping was worse than lying awake. For in his dreams he saw Xantippe
+and his child starving and crying for food, and he was unable to help
+them in any way. He lived over again the long day he had spent
+tramping the streets of Alexandria searching for work. He saw the few
+tourists still left in the town fat and happy; he saw the porters of
+the hotels who had smiled on him pityingly and yet contemptuously; and
+he woke, after each representation of the crude comedy, hot and yet
+cold with perspiration, to feel the bed on which he lay shaking under
+the sobs of his wife.
+
+When at last day dawned Gregorio raised himself with an oath, and
+swore to find food for his family and work for himself. The terrible
+debt he owed to Amos he swore should not trouble him, laughing at his
+wife's remonstrances. With the bright daylight had come a new courage,
+and, hungry as he was, he felt able not only to satisfy their hunger,
+but so skilfully to arrange matters that they would never feel hungry
+again. Yet is was a terrible ordeal, that half-hour when the family
+should have sat down to a table laden with food. The poor wife cried,
+and he had to comfort her tears with promises, unsubstantial nutriment
+indeed, and they could not satisfy the child, who failed dismally to
+understand them. Through the green blinds came the noise of life and
+health and merriment; curses too, sometimes, but only the curses of
+the well fed, and therefore meaningless. Already the sun fell hot and
+indomitable on the room, and the atmosphere at their touch became
+stifling. Gregorio, swallowing his tears, tore out into the street,
+shouting up the narrow stairway hysterical words of hope.
+
+How long and shadowless the street seemed! Every house had its green
+blinds closely shut; the wind that stirred the dust of the pavements
+was hot and biting. Gregorio clinched his hands and strode rapidly
+onward. What mattered it to him that behind those green blinds women
+and men slumbered in comparative comfort? He had a work to do, and by
+sunset must carry good tidings to his little world. For a time his
+heart was brave as the dry wind scorched the tear upon his cheek.
+"Surely," he thought, weaving his thoughts into a fine marching
+rhythm, "the great God will help me now, will help me now."
+
+At midday, after he had tried, with that strange Greek pertinacity
+that understands no refusals, all the hotels and tourist agencies he
+had called at the day before, he became weary and disconsolate. The
+march had become a dirge; no longer it suggested happiness to be, but
+failure. An Englishman threw him a piastre, and he turned into a cafe.
+Calling for a glass of wine, he flung himself down on the wooden bench
+and tried to think. But really logical thinking was impossible. For in
+spite of the sorrow at his heart, the same bright dreams of wealth and
+happiness came back to mock him. The piastre he played with became
+gold, and he felt the cafe contained no luxuries that he might not
+command to be brought before him. But as the effects of the red wine
+of Lebanon evaporated he began to take a soberer though still cheerful
+view of his position. It was only when the waiter carried off his
+piastre that he suddenly woke to fact and knew himself once more a man
+with a wife and child starving in Alexandria, an alien city for all
+its wealthy colony of Greeks. A wave of pity swept over him; not so
+much for the woman was he sorry, though he loved her too, but for the
+baby whose future he had planned. He scowled savagely at the inmates
+of the cafe, who only smiled quietly, for they were used to poor
+Greeks who had drunk away their last coin, and pushed past them into
+the street.
+
+There it was hotter than ever, and he met scarcely any one. Every one
+who could be was at home, or in the cool cafes; only Gregorio was
+abroad. He determined to make for the quay. He knew that many ships
+put into the Alexandrian waters, and there was often employment found
+for those not too proud to work at lading and unloading. Quickly, and
+burning as the kempsin, he hurried through the Rue des Soeurs, not
+daring to look up at the house wherein he dwelt. The muffled sounds of
+voices and guitars from the far-away interiors seemed to mock his
+footsteps as he passed the wine-shops; and all the other houses were
+silent and asleep. At last he arrived on the quay, and the black lines
+of the P. and O. stood out firmly before him against the pitiless blue
+of sea and sky. He wandered over the hot stone causeway, but found no
+one. The revenue officers were away, and not a labourer, not a sailor,
+was visible. Beyond the breakwater little tufts of silvery foam
+flashed on the rollers, and a solitary steamer steered steadily for
+the horizon. He could see the Greek flag at her stern, and his eyes
+filled with tears. Ah, how little his friends in Athens thought of the
+man who had come to find fame and fortune in the far-off East! He sat
+down on the parapet and watched the vessel until she became a tiny
+speck on the horizon, and then he recommenced his search for work. His
+heart was braver for a moment because of its pangs; he swore he would
+show these countrymen of his who dwelt at home, and who in three days
+would see the very ship he had been gazing at arrive in Grecian
+waters, that he was worthy of his country and his kinsfolk.
+
+But resolutions were useless, tenacity of purpose was useless. For two
+long hours he wandered by the harbour, but met no one.
+
+At last the sun fell behind the western waves, and the windows of the
+khedive's palace glowed like a hundred flaming eyes; the flags fell
+from the masts of the vessels; on the city side was a sudden silence,
+save for the melancholy voices of the muezzins; then the day died; the
+bright stars, suddenly piercing the heavens, mocked him with their
+brilliance and told him that his useless search for bread was over.
+
+Gregorio went back slowly to his home. Already the Rue des Soeurs was
+crowded. The long street rang with music and laughter, and instead of
+blinds covering the windows merry women leaned upon the sills and
+laughed at the crowds below.
+
+Gregorio, when he reached his house, would have liked to go straight
+to bed. But it was not to be, for as he entered the tiny room he heard
+his wife trying to persuade the hungry infant into sleep, and his
+footsteps disturbed her tears. He had to calm them as best he could,
+and as he soothed her he noticed the child had a crust in his hand
+which he gnawed half contentedly. At the same moment the dim blue
+figure of an Arab passed by the opposite wall, and had almost gained
+the door ere Gregorio found words.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"It is Ahmed," his wife answered, gently, placing her trembling hand
+upon his shoulder; "he too has children."
+
+Gregorio scowled and muttered, "An Arab," and in that murmur none of
+the loathing was hidden that the pseudo-West bears for the East.
+
+"The child is starving," said Ahmed. "I have saved the child; maybe
+some day I shall save the father." And Ahmed slipped away before
+Gregorio could answer him.
+
+For a while neither he nor his wife spoke; they stood silent in the
+moonlight. At last Gregorio asked huskily, "Have you had food?"
+
+"Not to-day," was the answer; and the sweet voice was almost
+discordant in its pathos as it continued, "nor drink, and but for
+Ahmed the boy had died."
+
+Gregorio could not answer; there was a lump in his throat that blocked
+words, opening the gate for sobs. But he choked down his emotion with
+an effort and busied himself about the room. Xantippe sat watching him
+anxiously, smoothly with nervous fingers the covering of her son's
+bed.
+
+As the night advanced the heat increased, and all that disturbed the
+silence of the room was the echo of the streets. Gregorio walked to
+the window and looked out. Below him he saw the jostling crowd of men
+and women. These people, he thought, were happy, and two miserables
+only dwelt in the city--his wife and himself. And whenever he asked
+himself what was the cause of his misery, the answer was ever the same
+--poverty. He glanced at his son, tossing uneasily in his bed; he
+looked at his wife, pale and haggard in the moonlight; he remembered
+his own sufferings all day long in the hot cruel streets, and he spoke
+unsteadily:
+
+"Xantippe?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have thought over things."
+
+"And I too."
+
+"We are starving,--you are starving, and I am starving,--and all day
+long I tramp these cursed streets, but gain nothing. So it will go on,
+day in, day out. Not only we ourselves, but our son too must die. We
+must save him."
+
+"Yes," said Xantippe, quietly, repeating her husband's words as she
+kissed the forehead of her child, "we must save him."
+
+"There is only one way."
+
+"Only one way," repeated Xantippe, dreamily. There was a pause, and
+then, as though the words had grown to have a meaning to her that she
+could not fathom, she queried, "What way, Gregorio?"
+
+"That," he said, roughly, as he caught her by the wrist, and, dragging
+her to the window, pointed to the women in the street beneath.
+
+Xantippe hid her face on her husband's breast and cried softly, while
+she murmured, "No, no; I will never consent."
+
+"Then the child will die," answered the Greek, curtly, flinging her
+from him.
+
+And the poor woman cast herself upon the bed beside her boy, and when
+her tears ceased for a moment stammered, "When?"
+
+"To-morrow," was the answer, cruel and peremptory. And as Gregorio
+closed the lattice, shutting out the noise of song and laughter, the
+room echoed with the mighty sobbing of a woman who was betrayed, and
+who repeated hysterically, while kissing the face of her child,
+"To-morrow, to-morrow there will be food for you."
+
+And Gregorio slept peacefully, for the danger of starvation was over;
+he would yet live to see his son become rich.
+
+And the woman?
+
+He kissed her before he slept, and women always cry.
+
+
+IV
+CONCERNING TWO WOMEN
+
+Gregorio felt a little bit ashamed of himself next morning. The
+excitement had passed, and the full meaning of his words came back to
+him and made him shudder. The sun, already risen, sent shafts of light
+between the lips of the wooden lattice. A faint sound of life and
+movement stole upward from the street below. But Xantippe and the boy
+still slumbered, though the woman's form shook convulsively at times,
+for she sobbed in her sleep.
+
+Gregorio looked at the two for a minute and then raised himself with
+an oath. The woman's heavy breathing irritated him, for, after all, he
+argued, it was her duty as well as his to sacrifice herself for the
+lad. Moreover, the Jew must be paid, and to-day was that appointed by
+Amos for the settling of their account. There was no money to pay it
+with, and they must lose their furniture, so much at least was
+certain. But Amos would not have the best of the bargain, thought the
+Greek as he looked round the room with a grin, and the certainty that
+he had got the better of Amos for the moment cheered his spirits.
+Then, too, after to-day there would be plenty to eat, for his wife
+could manage to earn money; nor was the man so mean in his villainy as
+to shirk any effort to earn money himself. After first looking at his
+wife critically and with a satisfied smile, he touched her on the
+shoulder to wake her.
+
+"I am going out for work," he said, as Xantippe opened her eyes.
+
+"All right."
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+But Xantippe answered not. She turned her face to the wall wearily as
+Gregorio left her.
+
+Entering the street he made straight for Amos's house, and told the
+porter, who was still lying on the trestle before the door, that he
+could not pay the Jew's bill. Then without waiting for an answer, he
+hurried off to the quay.
+
+With better luck than on the previous day, he managed to obtain
+employment for some hours. The Greek mail-boat had arrived, and under
+the blazing sun he toiled good-humouredly and patiently. The work was
+hard, but it gave him no opportunity of thinking. He had to be
+continually dodging large bales of fruit and wine, and if he made a
+mistake the officer on duty would shout at him angrily, "Lazy dog! you
+would not have left Greece were you not an idle fellow." Such words
+wounded his pride, and he determined to do so well that he should earn
+praise. But the little officer, his bright buttons flashing in the
+sunlight, who smoked quietly in the intervals of silence, never
+praised anybody; but he left off abusing Gregorio at last, and when
+work ceased for the day bade him come again on the morrow.
+
+At sunset Gregorio pocketed his few hard-earned piastres and wandered
+cityward. He did not care to go back to his home, for he knew there
+would be miserable stories to tell of the Jew's anger, and, moreover,
+he was terribly thirsty. So he went into a little cafe--known as the
+Penny-farthing Shop--opposite his house and called for a flask of
+kephisa. As he sipped the wine he glanced up nervously at his window
+and wondered whether his wife had already left home. Were he sure that
+she had, he would leave his wine untouched and hasten to look after
+his son and give him food. But until he knew Xantippe had gone he
+would not move. The sobs of yesterday still disturbed him, and he was
+more than once on the point of cancelling his resolves. But as the
+wine stirred his blood he became satisfied with what he had done and
+said. The little cafe at Benhur that was to make his fortune seemed
+nearly in his grasp. Had he not, he asked himself, worked all day
+without a murmur? It was right Xantippe should help him.
+
+As he sat dreamily thinking over these things, and watching the
+shadows turn to a darker purple under the oil-lamps, a woman spoke to
+him.
+
+"Well, Gregorio, are you asleep?"
+
+"No," said he, turning toward his questioner.
+
+The woman laughed. She was a big woman, dressed in loose folds of red
+and blue. Her hair was dishevelled, and ornamented with brass pins
+fastened into it at random. Her sleeves were rolled up to her armpits,
+and she had her arms akimbo--fat, flabby arms that shook as she
+laughed. Her eyes were almost hidden, she screwed them up so closely,
+but her wide mouth opened and disclosed a row of gigantic, flawless
+teeth.
+
+Gregorio frowned as he looked at her. He knew her well and had never
+liked her. But he dare not quarrel with her, for he owed her money,
+and "for the love of his black eyes," as she told him, she had ever a
+bottle of wine ready for him when he wished.
+
+"Well, my good woman," he blurted out, surlily, "you seem to be
+amused."
+
+"I am, Gregorio. Tell me," she continued, slyly, seating herself
+beside him and placing her elbows on the table, "how is she?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Xantippe. She came to me to-day, and I saw she had been crying. But I
+said nothing, because it is not always wise to ask questions. I
+thought she wept because she was hungry and because the baby was
+hungry. I offered her food and she took some, but so little, scarcely
+enough to cover a ten-piastre piece. 'That is for the baby,' I said;
+'now some for you.' But she refused."
+
+"Perhaps she had food for herself," said Gregorio, shifting uneasily
+in his chair.
+
+"Perhaps," said the woman, and laughed again, more loudly than ever,
+till the table shook. "But she asked me for something else," she
+continued, when her merriment languished for want of breath; "she
+asked me to let her have an old dress of mine, a bright yellow-and-red
+dress, and she borrowed some ornaments. It is not right of you,
+Gregorio, to keep an old friend on the door-step when you have a
+fantasia."
+
+Gregorio scowled savagely. After a pause he said, "I don't know why my
+wife wanted your dress and ornaments."
+
+"Oh yes, you do, friend Gregorio." And she laughed again, this time a
+suppressed, chuckling laugh that threatened to choke her; and she
+supported her chin on her hands, while her eyes peered through the
+enveloping fat at the man who sat opposite to her. Suddenly she stood
+up, and taking Gregorio by the arm dragged him to the door.
+
+"See, there she goes. My garments are cleverly altered and suit her
+finely, don't they? Ah, well, my friend, a man who cannot support a
+wife should marry a woman who can support him."
+
+Gregorio did not stop to answer her, but pushed past her into the
+street. The woman watched him enter the house opposite, and then
+returned quietly to her work. But there was a smile hovering round her
+lips as she murmured to herself, "Ah, well, in time."
+
+Gregorio meanwhile had run up to his room and entered it breathless
+with excitement. The first glance told him that Amos had seized all he
+could, for nothing remained save a wooden bench and one or two coarse,
+half-disabled cooking utensils.
+
+Gregorio swore a little as he realised what had happened. Then he saw
+in a corner by the window his son and Ahmed.
+
+"She has gone," said Ahmed, as Gregorio's gaze rested on him. But she
+might have gone merely to market, or to see a neighbour, for all the
+imperturbable Arab face disclosed. As soon as he had spoken the man
+bent over the child, laughing softly as the youngster played with his
+beard. For the Arab, as he is miscalled, is fond of children, and
+there are none to whom children take so readily as to the Egyptian
+fellahin.
+
+Gregorio watched the two for a moment, and then placing his remaining
+piastres in the man's hand bade him bring food and wine. As soon as he
+was left alone with his son, he flung himself down on the floor and
+kissed, "You shall be a great man, ay, a rich man, my son."
+
+He repeated the sentence over and over again, punctuating it with
+kisses, while the two-year-old regarded him wonderingly, until Ahmed
+returned.
+
+When the meal was ended Gregorio took the boy in his arms and sang to
+him softly till at last the infant slept. Then he placed him gently on
+the floor, having first made of his coat a bed, and went to the window
+and flung back the shutters. He smoked quietly as the minutes went by,
+waiting impatiently for his wife to return. It seemed to him monstrous
+that the boy who was to inherit a fortune should be sleeping on the
+dirty floor wrapped in an old coat; that an Arab, a mere fellah,
+should amuse his son and play with him, when Greek nurses were to be
+hired in Alexandria had one only the money. Long after midnight he
+heard a step on the stairs, and a minute after the door opened. He
+recognised his wife's footsteps, and he rose to meet her. As she came
+into the room she looked quickly round, and seeing her son went toward
+him and kissed him. Gregorio, half afraid, stood by the window
+watching her. She let her glance rest on him a minute, then she turned
+round and laid her cloak upon the floor.
+
+"Xantippe!"
+
+But she did not answer.
+
+"Xantippe, I have fed our son. The good days are coming when we shall
+be rich and happy."
+
+But Xantippe was too busy folding out the creases of her cloak to
+notice him. The moonlight streamed on to her, and her face shone like
+an angel's. Gregorio made one step toward her, ravished, for she had
+never appeared so beautiful to him. For the moment he forgot the whole
+hideous history of the last few days and the brief, horrible
+conversation of the night before. Fired with a desire to touch her, to
+kiss her, to whisper into her ear, in the soft Greek speech, all the
+endearments and tendernesses that had won her when he wooed her, he
+placed his hand upon her arm. As if stung by a venomous snake, the
+woman recoiled from his touch. With a quick movement she sprang back
+and flung at his face a handful of gold and silver coins.
+
+"Take them; they're yours," she cried, huskily, and retreated into the
+farthest corner of the room.
+
+With a savage curse Gregorio put his hand to his lips and wiped away
+the blood, for a heavy coin had cut him. Then he ran swiftly
+downstairs, and Xantippe, as she lay down wearily beside her boy,
+heard a woman laugh.
+
+
+V
+XANTIPPE LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW
+
+The Penny-farthing Shop was full of customers, and Madam Marx, the fat
+woman who followed Gregorio to the bar, was for a long time busy
+attending to her clients. Some English war-ships had entered the
+harbour at sunset, and many of the sailors had lost no time in seeking
+out their favourite haunt. Most of them knew Madam Marx well, as a
+good-natured woman who gave them plenty to drink for their money, and
+secreted them from the eyes of the police when the liquor overpowered
+them. Consequently there was much laughter and shaking of hands, and
+many a rough jest, which Madam Marx responded to in broken English.
+Gregorio watched the sailors gloomily. He hated the English, for even
+their sailors seemed to have plenty of money, and he recalled the rich
+Englishman he had seen at the Cafe Paradiso, drinking champagne and
+buying flowers for the Hungarian woman who played the fiddle. The
+scene he had just left contrasted disagreeably with the fun and
+jollity that surrounded him. But he felt unable to shake off his gloom
+and annoyance, and Madam Marx's attentions irritated him. He felt that
+her eyes continually rested on him, that, however busy she might be,
+he was never out of her thoughts. Every few minutes she would come
+toward him with a bottle of wine and fill up his glass, saying, "Come,
+my friend; wine is good and will drown your troubles." And though he
+resented her patronage, knowing he could not pay, he nevertheless
+drank steadily.
+
+Every few minutes he heard the sound of horses' hoofs on the hard
+roadway, and through the windows he saw the military police pass
+slowly on their rounds.
+
+At last the strong drinks so amiably retailed by Madam Marx did their
+work, and the men lay about the floor asleep and breathing heavily.
+The silence succeeding the noise startled Gregorio from his sullen
+humour. Madam Marx came and sat beside him, weary as she was with her
+long labours, and talked volubly. The wine had mounted to his head,
+and he answered her in rapid sentences, accompanying his words with
+gesture and grimace. What he talked about he scarcely knew, but the
+woman laughed, and he took an insane delight in hearing her. Just
+before daylight he fell asleep, resting his head on his arms, that
+were spread across the table. Madam Marx kissed him as he slept,
+murmuring to herself contentedly, "Ah, well, in time."
+
+When Gregorio woke the sun was high in the heavens, blazing out of a
+brazen sky. Clouds of dust swept past the door from time to time, and
+cut his neck and face as he stood on the threshold smoking lazily. It
+was too late to go down to the quay, for his place must have long ago
+been filled by another. He was not sorry, since he by no means desired
+to toil again under the hot sun; the heavy drinking of the night had
+made him lethargic, and he was so thirsty the heat nearly choked him.
+He called out to a water-carrier staggering along in the scanty shade
+on the opposite side of the street, and took eagerly a draught of
+water. He touched the pigskin with his hand, and it was hot. The water
+was warm and made him sick; he spat it from his mouth hastily, and
+hearing a laugh behind him, turned round and saw Madam Marx.
+
+"See, here is some wine, my friend; leave the water for the Arabs."
+
+Gregorio gratefully seized the flagon and let the wine trickle down
+his throat, while Madam Marx, with arms akimbo, stood patiently before
+him.
+
+"I must go now," he said, as he handed back the half-emptied flask.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because I must get some work."
+
+"It is not easy to get work in the summer."
+
+"I know, but I must get some. I owe money to Amos."
+
+"Yes, I know. But your wife is making money now."
+
+The man scowled at her. "How do you know that? Before God, I swear
+that she is not."
+
+"Come, come, Gregorio. You were drunk last night, and your tongue
+wagged pretty freely. It's not a bit of use being angry with me,
+because I only know what you've told me. Besides, I'm your friend, you
+know that."
+
+Gregorio flushed angrily at the woman's words, but he knew quite well
+it was no use replying to them, for she was speaking only the truth.
+But the knowledge that he had betrayed his secret annoyed him. He had
+grown used to the facts and could look at them easily enough, but he
+had not reckoned on others also learning them.
+
+He determined to go out and find work, or at any rate to tramp the
+streets pretending to look for something to do. The woman became
+intolerable to him, and the Penny-farthing Shop, reeking with the
+odour of stale tobacco and spilled liquor, poisoned him. He took up
+his hat brusquely and stepped into the street.
+
+Madam Marx, standing at the door, laughed at him as she called out,
+"Good-bye, Gregorio; when will you come back?"
+
+He did not answer, but the sound of her laughter followed him up the
+street, and he kicked angrily at the stones in his path.
+
+At last he passed by the Ras-el-Tin barracks. He looked curiously at
+the English soldiers. Some were playing polo on the hard brown space
+to the left, and from the windows of the building men leaned out,
+their shirt-sleeves rolled up and their strong arms bared to the sun.
+They smoked short clay pipes, and innumerable little blue spiral
+clouds mounted skyward. Obviously the heat did not greatly
+inconvenience them, for they laughed and sang and drank oceans of
+beer.
+
+The sight of them annoyed Gregorio. He looked at the pewter mugs
+shining in the sunlight. He eyed greedily the passage of one from hand
+to hand; and when one man, after taking a long pull, laughed and held
+it upside down to show him it was empty, he burst into an
+uncontrollable fit of anger, and shook his fist impotently at the
+soldiers, who chaffed him good-naturedly. As he went along by the
+stables, a friendly lancer, pitying him, probably, too, wearying of
+his own lonely watch, called to him, and offered him a drink out of a
+stone bottle. Gregorio drank again feverishly, and handed the bottle
+back to its owner with a grin, and passed on without a word. The
+soldier watched him curiously, but said nothing.
+
+When he reached the lighthouse Gregorio flung himself on to the
+pebble-strewn sand and looked across the bay. The blue water, calm and
+unruffled as a sheet of glass, spread before him. The ships--Austrian
+Lloyd mail-boats, P. and O. liners, and grimy coal-hulks--lay
+motionless against the white side of the jetty.
+
+The khedive's yacht was bright with bunting, and innumerable fishing-
+boats near the breakwater made grateful oases in the glare whereon his
+eyes might rest. But he heeded them not. Angrily he flung lumps of
+stone and sand into the wavelets at his feet, and pushed back his hat
+that his face might feel the full heat of the sun. Then he lit a
+cigarette and began to think.
+
+But what was the good of thinking? The thoughts always formed
+themselves into the same chain and reached the same conclusion; and
+ever on the glassy surface of the Levantine sea a woman poised herself
+and laughed at him.
+
+When the sun fell behind the horizon, and the breakwater, after
+dashing up one flash of gold, became a blue blur, Gregorio rose to go.
+As he walked back toward the Penny-farthing Shop he felt angry and
+unsatisfied. The whole day was wasted. He had done nothing to relieve
+his wife, nothing to pay off Amos. Madam met him at the door, a flask
+of wine in her hand. Against his will Gregorio entered her cafe and
+smiled, but his smile was sour and malevolent.
+
+"You want cheering, my friend," said madam, laughing.
+
+"I have found nothing to do," said Gregorio.
+
+"Ah! I told you it would be hard. There are no tourists in Alexandria
+now. And it is foolish of you to tramp the streets looking for work
+that you will never find, when you have everything you can want here."
+
+"Except money, and that's everything," put in Gregorio, bluntly.
+
+"Even money, my friend. I have enough for two."
+
+Madam Marx had played her trump card, and she watched anxiously the
+effect of her words. For a moment the man did not speak, but trifled
+with his cigarette tobacco, rolling it gently between his brown
+fingers. Then he said:
+
+"You know I am in debt now, and I want to pay off all I owe, and leave
+here."
+
+"Yes, that's true, but you won't pay off your debts by tramping the
+streets, and your little cafe at Benhur will be a long time building,
+I fancy. Meanwhile there is money to be made at the Penny-farthing
+Shop."
+
+"What are your terms?" asked Gregorio, roughly.
+
+The woman laughed, but did not answer. The stars were shining, and the
+kempsin that had blown all day was dead. It was cool sitting outside
+the door of the cafe under the little awning, and pleasant to watch
+the blue cigarette smoke float upward in the still air. Gregorio sat
+for a while silent, and the woman came and stood by him. "You know my
+terms," she whispered, and Gregorio smiled, took her hand, and kissed
+her. At that moment the blind of the opposite house was flung back.
+Xantippe leaned out of the window and saw them.
+
+
+VI
+BABY AND JEW
+
+When the Penny-farthing Shop began to fill Gregorio disappeared
+quietly by the back door. He muttered a half-unintelligible answer to
+the men who were playing cards in the dim parlour through which he had
+to pass, who called to him to join them. Gaining the street, he
+wandered along till he reached the bazaars, intending to waste an hour
+or two until Xantippe should have left the house. Then he determined
+to go back and see the boy in whom all his hopes and ambitions were
+centered, who was the unconscious cause of his villainy and
+degradation.
+
+There was a large crowd in the bazaars, for a Moolid was being
+celebrated. Jugglers, snake-charmers, mountebanks, gipsies, and
+dancing-girls attracted hundreds of spectators.
+
+The old men sat in the shadows of their stalls, smoking and drinking
+coffee. They smiled gravely at the younger people, who jostled one
+another good-humouredly, laughing, singing, quarrelling like children.
+Across the roadway hung lamps of coloured glass and tiny red flags
+stamped with a white crescent and a star. Torches blazed at intervals,
+casting a flickering glow on the excited faces of the crowd.
+
+Gregorio watched without much interest. He had seen a great many
+fantasias since he came to Egypt, and they were no longer a novelty to
+him. He was annoyed that a race of people whom he despised should be
+so merry when he himself had so many troubles to worry him. He would
+have liked to go into one of the booths where the girls danced, but he
+had no money, and he cursed at his stupidity in not asking the Marx
+woman for some. He no longer felt ashamed of himself, for he argued
+that he was the victim of circumstances. Still he wished Xantippe had
+not looked out of the window, though of course he could easily explain
+things to her. And Xantippe was really so angry the night before,
+explanations were better postponed for a time. "After all," he
+thought, "it really does not much matter. Once we get over our present
+difficulties we shall forget all we have gone through." This
+comfortable reflection had been doing duty pretty often the last day
+or two, and though Gregorio did not believe it a bit, he always felt
+it was a satisfactory conclusion, and one to be encouraged.
+
+Meanwhile he would not meet Xantippe. That was a point upon which he
+had definitely made up his mind. As he strolled through the bazaars,
+putting into order his vagabond thoughts, in a tall figure a few yards
+in front of him he recognised Amos. Nervous, he halted, for he had no
+desire to be interviewed by the Jew, and yet no way of escape seemed
+possible.
+
+Nodding affably to the proprietor, he sat down on the floor of a shop
+hard by and watched Amos. The old man was evidently interested, for he
+was laughing pleasantly, and bending down to look at something on the
+ground. What it was Gregorio could not see. A knot of people, also
+laughing, surrounded the Jew. Gregorio was curious to see what
+attracted them, but fearful of being recognised by the old man.
+However, after a few moments his impatience mastered him, and he
+stepped up to the group.
+
+"What is it?" he asked one of the bystanders.
+
+"Only a baby. It's lost, I think."
+
+Gregorio pushed his way into the centre of the crowd and suddenly
+became white as death.
+
+There, seated on the ground, was his own child, laughing and talking
+to himself in a queer mixture of Greek and Arabic. Amos was bending
+kindly over the youngster, giving him cakes and sweets, and making
+inquiries as to the parents.
+
+A chill fear seized on Gregorio's heart. He could not have explained
+the cause, nor did he stay and try to explain it. Quickly he broke
+into the midst of the circle and, catching up the boy in his arms, ran
+swiftly away.
+
+Having reached home, he kissed the boy passionately, sent for food to
+Madam Marx, and wept and laughed hysterically for an hour. After a
+time the boy slept, and Gregorio then paced up and down the room,
+smoking, and puffing great clouds of smoke from his mouth, trying to
+calm himself. But he could not throw off his excitement. He imagined
+the awful home-coming had he not been to the bazaar, and he wondered
+what he would have done then. A great joy possessed him to see his son
+safe, and a fierce desire filled him to know who had taken the child
+away. He longed for Xantippe's return that he might tell her. He
+forgot completely that he had dreaded seeing her earlier this evening.
+Then he began to wonder what Amos was doing at the fantasia, and why
+he was so interested in the boy. Perhaps, Amos would forgive the debt
+for love of the child. The idea pleased him, but he soon came to
+understand that it was untenable. Oftener, indeed, he shuddered as he
+recalled the old man's figure bent over the infant. A sense of danger
+to come overwhelmed him. In some way he felt that the old man and the
+child were to be brought together to work his, Gregorio's, ruin.
+
+Suddenly he heard a footstep on the stairs. "Thank God!" he cried, as
+he ran to the door.
+
+"Xantippe!"
+
+But he recoiled as if shot, for as the door opened Amos entered. The
+Jew bowed politely to the Greek, but there was an unpleasant twinkle
+in his eyes as he spoke.
+
+"You cannot offer me a seat, my friend, so I will stand. We have met
+already this evening."
+
+Gregorio did not answer, but placed himself between the Jew and the
+child.
+
+"I dare say you did not see me," the old man continued, quietly, "for
+you seemed excited. I suppose the child is yours. It was surely
+careless to let him stray so far from home."
+
+"The child is mine."
+
+"Ah, well, it is a happy chance that you recovered him so easily. And
+now to business."
+
+"I am listening."
+
+"I have already, as of course you know, been here to see you about the
+money you owe me. I was sorry you did not see fit to pay me, because I
+had to sell your furniture, and it was not worth much."
+
+"I have no money to pay you, or I would have paid you long ago. I told
+you when I went to your house that I could not pay you."
+
+"And yet, my friend, it is only fair that a man who borrows money
+should be prepared to pay it back."
+
+"I could pay you back if you gave me time. But you have no heart, you
+Jews. What do you care if we starve, so long as--"
+
+"Hush!" said Amos, gravely; "I have dealt fairly by you. But I will
+let you go free on one condition."
+
+"And that is?"
+
+"That you give me the child."
+
+Gregorio stood speechless with horror and rage at the window, and the
+old man walked across the room to where the infant lay.
+
+"I have no young son, Gregorio Livadas, and I will take yours. Not
+only will I forgive you the debt, but I will give you money. I want
+the child."
+
+"By God, you shall not touch him!" cried Gregorio, suddenly finding
+voice for his passion.
+
+He rushed furiously at Amos, gripped him by the throat, and flung him
+to the far side of the room. Then he stood by his child with his arms
+folded on his breast, his eyes flashing and his nostrils dilated. Amos
+quickly recovered himself, and, in a voice that scarcely trembled,
+again demanded his money.
+
+"Go away," shouted Gregorio; "if you come here again, I will kill you.
+Twice now have I saved my boy from falling into your hands."
+
+"I wish only to do you a service. You are a beggar, and I am rich
+enough, ask Heaven, to look after the child. Why should you abuse me
+because I offer to release you from your debts if you will let me take
+the child?"
+
+Gregorio answered brusquely that the Jew should not touch the boy. "I
+will not have him made a Jew."
+
+"Then you will pay me."
+
+"I will not. I cannot."
+
+"I shall take measures, my friend, to force you to pay me. I have not
+dealt harshly with you. I came here to help you, and you have insulted
+me and beaten me."
+
+"Because you are a dog of a Jew, and you have tried to steal my son."
+
+A nasty look came into the Jew's eyes,--a cold, cunning look,--and he
+was about to reply when the door opened and Xantippe entered. She was
+well dressed, and wore some ornaments of gold. Amos turned toward her,
+asking the man:
+
+"This is your wife?"
+
+But Gregorio told Xantippe rapidly the history of his adventures with
+the boy; and the woman, hearing them, moved quietly to the corner
+where he slept, and took him in her arms.
+
+The Jew smiled. "I see," he said, "that madam has money. She has taken
+the advice I gave you the other day. Now I know that you can pay me,
+and if you do not within two days, Gregorio Livadas, you will repent
+the insults you have heaped on my head this night."
+
+He walked quietly to the corner of the room, where Xantippe sat
+nursing the boy, touched the child gently on the forehead with his
+lips, and then went out.
+
+For some minutes neither Xantippe nor Gregorio spoke, but the man
+rubbed the infant's forehead with his finger as if to wipe out the
+stain of the Jew's kiss.
+
+
+VII
+XANTIPPE SPEAKS OUT
+
+At last the silence, roused only by the strident buzzing of the
+mosquitos, became unendurable. Gregorio gave a preparatory cough and
+opened his lips to speak, but the words refused to be born. He was
+unnerved. The odious visitor, the wearying day, the memory of
+Xantippe's face at the window, combined to make him fearful. He
+watched, under his half-closed lids, his wife crouching on the far
+side of the boy. Once or twice, as he was rubbing the youngster's
+forehead, his fingers touched those of his wife as she waved off the
+mosquitos; but at each contact with them he shivered and his fears
+increased. He tried, vainly, to get his thoughts straight, and lit a
+cigarette with apparent calmness, swaggering to the window; but his
+legs did not cease to tremble, and the unsteadiness of his gait caused
+Xantippe to smile as she watched him. Resting by the window, Gregorio
+widened the lips of the lattice and let in a stream of moonbeams that
+rested on wife and child, illumining the dark corner.
+
+"Gregorio!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you told me all? Is there nothing else to tell em about our son
+and the Jew?"
+
+Gregorio felt he must now speak; it was not possible to keep silence
+longer. He was pleased that his wife had begun the conversation, for
+it seemed easier to answer questions than to frame them. "I have told
+you the whole story. There is no more to tell. It was by accident I
+found him in the bazaar, and that devil Amos was bending over him. I
+could kill that man."
+
+"What good would that do?"
+
+"Fancy if we had lost the boy! Think of the sacrifices we have made
+for him, and they would have been useless."
+
+"Have you made any sacrifices, Gregorio?"
+
+The question was quietly asked, but there was a ring of irony in the
+sound of the voice, and Gregorio, to shun his wife's gaze, moved into
+the friendly shadows. For some minutes he did not answer. At length,
+with a nervous laugh, he replied:
+
+"Of course. We have both made sacrifices, great sacrifices."
+
+"It is odd," pursued Xantippe, gently, as if speaking to herself,
+"that you should so flatter yourself. You professed to care for me
+once; you only regard me now as a slave to earn money for you."
+
+"It is for our son's sake."
+
+"Is it for our son's sake also that you sit with Madam Marx, that you
+drink her wine, that you kiss her?"
+
+Gregorio could not answer. He felt it were useless to try and explain,
+though the reason seemed to him clear enough.
+
+"I am glad to have the chance," continued Xantippe, "of talking to
+you, for we may now understand each other. I have made the greatest
+sacrifice, and because it was for our son's sake I forgave you. I
+wept, but, as I wept, I said, 'It is hell for Gregorio too.' But when
+I looked from the window this afternoon I knew it was not hell for
+you. I knew you did not care what became of me. It was pleasant for
+you to send me away to make money while you drank and kissed at the
+Penny-farthing Shop. I came suddenly to know that the man had spoken
+truth."
+
+"What man?" asked Gregorio, huskily.
+
+"The man! The man you bade me find. Because money is not gathered from
+the pavements. You know that, and you sent me out to get money. When I
+first came back to you I flung the gold at you; it burned my fingers,
+and your eagerness for it stung. But I did not quite hate you, though
+his words had begun to chime in my ears: 'In my country such a husband
+would be horsewhipped.' When you were kind I was little more than a
+dog you liked to pet. I thought that was how all women were treated. I
+know differently now. You will earn money through me, for it is my
+duty to my son, but you have earned something else."
+
+"Yes?" queried Gregorio.
+
+"My hate. Surely you are not surprised? I have learned what love is
+these last few days, have learned what a real man is like. I know you
+to be what he called you, a cur and a coward. I should never have
+learned this but for you, and I am grateful, very grateful. It is
+useless to swear and to threaten me with your fists. You dare not
+strike me, because, were you to injure me, you would lose your money.
+You have tried to degrade me, and you have failed. I am happier than I
+have ever been, and far, far wiser. When a woman learns what a man's
+love is, she becomes wiser in a day than if she had studied books for
+a hundred years."
+
+Xantippe ceased speaking and, taking her son in her arms, closed her
+eyes and fell asleep quietly, a gentle smile hovering round her lips.
+
+Gregorio scowled at her savagely, and would have liked to strike her,
+to beat out his passion on her white breast and shoulders. But she had
+spoken only the truth when she said he dare not touch her. With
+impotent oaths he sought to let off the anger that boiled in him. He
+feared to think, and every word she had uttered made him think in
+spite of himself. The events of sixty hours had destroyed what little
+of good there was in the man. Save only the idolatrous love for his
+child, he scarcely retained one ennobling quality.
+
+Little by little his anger cooled, his shame died out of him, and he
+began to wonder curiously what manner of man this was whose words had
+so stirred his wife. Wondering he fell asleep, nor did he awaken till
+the sun was risen.
+
+While eating his breakfast he inquired cunningly concerning this wise
+teacher of the gospels of love and hate, but Xantippe for a time did
+not answer.
+
+"Is he a Greek?"
+
+"No."
+
+"A Frenchman?"
+
+"No."
+
+"A German?"
+
+"No."
+
+Suddenly Gregorio felt a kind of cramp at his heart, and he had to
+pause before he put the next question. He could scarcely explain why
+he hesitated, but he called to mind the Paradise cafe and the red-
+faced Englishman. He was ready enough to sacrifice his wife if by so
+doing money might be gained, but he felt somehow hurt in his vanity at
+the idea of this ugly, slow-witted Northerner usurping his place. With
+an effort, however, he put the question:
+
+"Is he an Englishman?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was seized with a tumult of anger. He spoke volubly, talking of the
+ignorance of the English, their brutality, their dull brains, their
+stupid pride. Xantippe waited till he had finished speaking and then
+replied quietly:
+
+"It cannot matter to you. It is my concern. You have lost all rights
+to be angry with me or those connected with me."
+
+Gregorio refused to hear reason, and explained how he begrudged them
+their wealth and fame. "For these English are a dull people, and we
+Greeks are greatly superior."
+
+"I do not agree with you," Xantippe replied. "I have learned what a
+man is since I have known him, and I have learned to hate you. You may
+have more brains--that I know nothing of, nor do I care. He could not
+behave as you have behaved, nor have sacrificed me as you have
+sacrificed me. Some of his money comes to you. You want money. Be
+satisfied."
+
+Gregorio felt the justice of her words, and he watched her put on her
+hat and leave the room. A minute later, looking out of the window, he
+saw her link her arm in that of the Englishman of the Paradiso, and
+across the street, at the threshold of the Penny-farthing Shop, Madam
+Marx waved her hand to himself and laughed.
+
+
+VIII
+A DESOLATE HOME-COMING
+
+Toward the evening of a day a fortnight later, Gregorio found himself
+seated in Madam Marx's cafe, idly watching the passers-by. He was
+feeling happier, for that was being amassed which alone could insure
+happiness to him. Each day some golden pieces were added to the amount
+saved, and the cafe at Benhur seemed almost within his grasp. The
+feeling of security from want acted as a narcotic and soothed him, so
+that the things which should have troubled him scarcely interested him
+at all. He was intoxicated with the sight of gold. When he had first
+seen Xantippe and the Englishman together his anger had been violent;
+but when at last the futility of his rage became certain, his
+aggressive passion had softened to a smouldering discontent that
+hardly worried him, unless he heard some one speak a British name. His
+prosperity had destroyed the last vestiges of shame and soothed his
+illogical outbursts of fury. He was contented enough now to sit all
+day with Madam Marx, and returned to his home in the evening when
+Xantippe was away. He had spoken to her only once since she had told
+him she hated him. He had strolled out of the cafe about midday and
+entered his room. Xantippe was there, talking to her child, and
+quietly bade him go away.
+
+"It's my room as well as yours," Gregorio had answered.
+
+"It is my money that pays for it," was the reply.
+
+A long conversation followed, but Xantippe met the man's coarse anger
+with quiet scorn, and told him that if he stayed she would grow to
+dislike her son since he was the father.
+
+Gregorio was wise enough to control his anger then. For he knew that
+if she were really to lose her love for the boy, all his chances, and
+the boy's chances, of ease and prosperity would be destroyed. It was,
+of course, ridiculous to imagine she would supply him with money then.
+That she thoroughly loathed him, and would always loathe him, was very
+certain. So great, indeed, seemed her contempt for him that it was
+quite possible she might come to hate his child. So he did not attempt
+to remain in the room, but as he closed the door after him he waited a
+moment and listened. He heard her heave a sigh of relief and then say
+to the little fellow, "How like your father you grow! My God! I almost
+think I hate you for being so like him." Gregorio shuddered as he ran
+noiselessly downstairs. He never ventured to speak to her again. He
+argued himself out of the disquiet into which her words had thrown
+him. He knew it was difficult for a woman to hate her child. The
+birth-pains cement a love it requires a harsh wrench to sever. He
+easily persuaded himself, as he sipped Madam Marx's coffee, that if he
+kept in the background all cause for hatred would be removed. As for
+her feelings toward himself, he had ceased, almost, to care. The money
+was worth the cost paid in the attainment of it, and a woman's laugh
+was less sweet to him than the chink of gold and silver pieces. On the
+whole Gregorio had little reason to be troubled; only unreasoning
+dislike for the Englishman--why could not he be of any other nation,
+or, if an Englishman, any other Englishman?--hurt his peace of mind.
+And for the most part his discontent only smouldered.
+
+Madam Marx brought her coffee and sat beside him. Her face betokened
+satisfaction, and she looked at Gregorio with a possessive smile. She
+had gained her desire, and asked fortune for no other gift.
+
+"You have not seen Xantippe since she turned you out? Ah, well, it is
+much better you should keep away. You are welcome here, and it is
+foolish to go where one is not wanted."
+
+"I've not seen her; I'm afraid to see her." He spoke openly to madam
+now.
+
+"Some women are queer. If she had ever really loved you, she would not
+have thrown you over. I should not have complained had I been in her
+place. One cannot always choose one's lot."
+
+"It's that damned Englishman who has spoiled her."
+
+"Ah, yes, those English! I know them."
+
+"Did I tell you what she said about the boy?"
+
+"Yes, my friend. But as long as you don't worry her, her words need
+not worry you."
+
+"They don't, except sometimes at night. I wake up and remember them,
+and then I am afraid."
+
+"Why do you hate the Englishman? To my mind it is lucky for both of
+you that this Englishman saw her. There are not men so rich as the
+English, and he is a rich Englishman. You are lucky."
+
+"I hate him."
+
+"Because he has stolen your wife's love?" Madam Marx, as she put the
+question, laid her fat hand upon Gregorio's shoulder and laughed
+confidently. The movement irritated him, but he never tried to resist
+her now.
+
+"No, not quite that. I'm used to it, and the money more than
+compensates me. But I hated the man when I first saw him in the
+Paradise. There was a fiddler-woman he talked to, and he could
+scarcely make himself understood. He had money, and he gave her
+champagne and flowers. And I was starving, and the woman was
+beautiful."
+
+Madam tapped his cheek and smiled.
+
+"The woman can't interest you now. Also you have money--his money."
+
+"Still I hate him."
+
+"You Greeks are like children. Your hatred is unreasonable; there is
+no cause for it."
+
+"Unreasonable and not to be reasoned away."
+
+"Well, why worry about him? He won't follow you to Benhur, I fancy."
+
+"It doesn't worry me generally; but when you mention him my hate
+springs up again. I forget him when I am by myself."
+
+"Forget him now."
+
+And they drank coffee in silence.
+
+Darkness came on, and the blue night mist. Gregorio was impatient to
+see his son. He gazed intently at the door of the opposite house,
+little heeding madam, who was busy with preparations for the evening's
+entertainment of her customers. Suddenly he saw a woman leave the
+house, hail a passing carriage, and drive rapidly down the street
+toward the Place Mehemet Ali. Gregorio, with a cry of pleasure, rose
+and left the cafe. Madam Marx followed him to the door and called a
+good-night to him. Gregorio stood irresolutely in the middle of the
+road. He had promised the boy a boat, and he blamed himself for having
+forgotten to buy it. Grumbling at his forgetfulness, he hurried along
+the street, determined to waste no time. On occasions he could
+relinquish his lazy, slouching gait, and he would hurry always to obey
+the commands of the king his son. A pleasant smile at the thought of
+the pleasure his present would cause softened the sinister mould of
+his lips, and he sang softly to himself as he moved quickly cityward.
+
+Before he had gone many yards an oath broke in upon the music, and he
+darted swiftly under the shadow of a wall; for coming forward him was
+Amos the Jew. But the old man's sharp eyes detected the victim, and,
+following Gregorio into his hiding-place, Amos laid his hand upon the
+Greek.
+
+"Why do you try to hide when we have so much to say to one another?"
+
+Gregorio shook himself from the Jew's touch and professed ignorance of
+the necessity for speech.
+
+"Come, come, my friend, the money you borrowed is still owing in
+part."
+
+"But you will be paid. We are saving money; we cannot put by all we
+earn--we must live."
+
+"I will be paid now; if I am not, you are to blame for the
+consequences."
+
+And with a courtly salute the Jew passed on. Now Gregorio had not
+forgotten his debt, nor the Jew's threats, and he fully intended to
+pay what he owed. But of course it would take time, and the man was
+too impatient. He realised he had been foolish not to pay something on
+account; but it hurt him to part with gold. He determined, however, to
+send Amos something when he returned home. So good a watch had been
+kept, he never doubted the child's safety. But it would be awkward if
+Amos got him put in jail. So he reckoned up how much he could afford
+to pay, and, having bought the toy, returned eagerly home. He ran
+upstairs, singing a barcarole at the top of his voice, and rushed into
+the room, waving the model ship above his head. "See here," he cried,
+"is the ship! I have not forgotten it." But his shout fell to a
+whisper. The room was empty.
+
+With a heartbroken sob the man fell swooning on the floor.
+
+
+IX
+A DISCOVERY AND A CONSPIRACY
+
+For long he lay stretched out upon the floor in a state of half-
+consciousness. He could hear the mosquitos buzzing about his face, he
+could hear, too, the sounds of life rise up from the street below; but
+he was able to move neither arm nor leg, and his head seemed fastened
+to the floor by immovable leaden weights. That his son was lost was
+all he understood.
+
+How long he lay there he scarcely knew, but it seemed to him weeks. At
+last he heard footsteps on the stairs. He endeavoured vainly to raise
+himself, and, though he strove to cry out, his tongue refused to frame
+the words. Lying there, living and yet lifeless, he saw the door open
+and Amos enter. The old man hesitated a moment, for the room was dark,
+while Gregorio, who had easily recognised his visitor, lay impotent on
+the floor. Before Amos could become used to the darkness the door
+again opened, and Madam Marx entered with a lamp in her hand. Amos
+turned to see who had followed him, and, in turning, his foot struck
+against Gregorio's body. Immediately, the woman crying softly, both
+visitors knelt beside the sick man. A fierce look blazed in Gregorio's
+eyes, but the strong words of abuse that hurried through his brain
+would not be said.
+
+"He is very ill," said Amos; "he has had a stroke of some sort."
+
+"Help me to carry him to my house," sobbed the woman, and she kissed
+the Greek's quivering lip and pallid brow. Then rising to her feet,
+she turned savagely on the Jew.
+
+"It is your fault. It is you who have killed him."
+
+"Nay, madam; I had called here for my money, and I had a right to do
+so. It has been owing for a long time."
+
+"No; you have killed him."
+
+"Indeed, I wished him well. I was willing to forgive the debt if he
+would let me take the child."
+
+A horrid look of agony passed over Gregorio's face, but he remained
+silent and motionless. The watchers saw that he understood and that a
+tempest of wrath and pain surged within the lifeless body. They
+stooped down and carried him downstairs and across the road to the
+Penny-farthing Shop. The Jew's touch burned Gregorio like hot embers,
+but he could not shake himself free. When he was laid on a bed in a
+room above the bar, through the floor of which rose discordant sounds
+of revelry, Amos left them. Madam Marx flung herself on the bed beside
+him and wept.
+
+Two days later Gregorio sat, at sunset, by Madam Marx's side, on the
+threshold of the cafe. He had recovered speech and use of limbs. With
+wrathful eloquence he had told his companion the history of the
+terrible night, and now sat weaving plots in his maddened brain.
+
+Replying to his assertion that Amos was responsible, Madam Marx said:
+
+"Don't be too impetuous, Gregorio. Search cunningly before you strike.
+Maybe your wife knows something."
+
+"My wife! Not she; she is with her Englishman. Amos has stolen the
+boy, and you know it as well as I do. Didn't he tell you he wanted the
+child? I met him that night, and he told me if I did not pay I had
+only myself to blame for the trouble that would fall on me."
+
+"Come, come, Gregorio, cheer up!" said the woman; for the Greek, with
+head resting on his hands, was sobbing violently.
+
+"I tell you, all I cared for in life is taken from me. But I will have
+my revenge, that I tell you too."
+
+For a while they sat silent, looking into the street. At last Gregorio
+spoke:
+
+"My wife has not returned since that night, has she?"
+
+"I have not seen her."
+
+"Well, I must see her; she can leave the Englishman now."
+
+Madam Marx laughed a little, but said nothing.
+
+"There is Ahmed," cried Gregorio, as a blue-clad figure passed on the
+other side of the street. He beckoned to the Arab, who came across at
+his summons.
+
+"You seem troubled," he said, as he looked into the Greek's face; and
+Gregorio retold the terrible story.
+
+"You know nothing of all this?" he added, suspiciously, as his
+narrative ended.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"My God! it is so awful I thought all the world knew of it. You often
+nursed and played with the boy?"
+
+"Ay, and fed him. We Arabs love children, even Christian children, and
+I will help you if I can."
+
+"Why should Amos want the boy?" asked Madam Marx, as she put coffee
+and tobacco before the guests.
+
+"Because I owe him money, and he knew the loss of my son would be the
+deadliest revenge. He will make my son a Jew, a beastly Jew. By God,
+he shall not, he shall not!"
+
+"We must find him and save him," said the woman.
+
+"He will never be a Jew. That is not what Amos wants your son for;
+there are plenty of Jews." Ahmed spoke quietly.
+
+"They sacrifice children," he continued, after a moment's pause;
+"surely you know that, and if you would save your boy there is not
+much time to lose."
+
+Gregorio trembled at Ahmed's words. He wondered how he could have
+forgotten the common report, and his fingers grasped convulsively the
+handle of his knife.
+
+"Let us go to Amos," he said, speaking the words with difficulty, for
+he was choking with fear for his son.
+
+"Wait," answered the Arab; "I will come again to-night and bring some
+friends with me, two men who will be glad to serve you. We Arabs are
+not sorry to strike at the Jews; we have our own wrongs. Wait here
+till I come."
+
+"But what will you do?" asked Madam Marx, looking anxiously on the man
+she loved, though her words were for the Arab.
+
+"Gregorio will ask for his son. If the old man refuses to restore him,
+or denies that he has taken him, then we will know the worst, and
+then--"
+
+Gregorio's knife-blade glittered in the sunset rays, as he tested its
+sharpness between thumb and finger. The Arab watched with a smile. "We
+understand one another," he said. There was no need to finish the
+description of his plan. With a solemn wave of his hand he left the
+cafe.
+
+"That man Ahmed," said Madam Marx, "has a grudge against Amos. It
+dates from the bombardment, and he had waited all these years to
+avenge himself. I believe it was the loss of his wife."
+
+"Amos made her a Jewess, eh?" And then, after a pause, Gregorio added:
+
+"So we can depend on Ahmed. To-night I will win back my son or--"
+
+"Or?" queried madam, tremblingly.
+
+"Or Amos starts on his journey to hell. God, how my fingers itch to
+slay him! The devil, the Jew devil!"
+
+
+X
+AT THE HOUSE OF AMOS
+
+As Ahmed had advised, Gregorio settled himself patiently to await the
+summons. Madam would have liked to ask him many questions, and to have
+extracted a promise from him not to risk his life in any mad
+enterprise his accomplice might suggest. But though the Greek's body
+seemed almost lifeless, so quietly and immovably he rested on his
+chair, there was a restless look in his eyes that told her how
+fiercely and irrepressibly his anger burned. She knew enough of his
+race to know that no power on earth could stop him striking for
+revenge. And she trembled, for she knew also that directly he had
+begun to strike his madness would increase, and that only sheer
+physical exhaustion would stay his hand.
+
+Madam Marx was unhappy, and as she waited on her customers her eyes
+rested continually on the Greek, who heeded her not. Once she carried
+some wine to him, and he drank eagerly, spilling a few drops on the
+floor first. "It's like blood," he muttered, and smiled. Madam hastily
+covered his mouth with her trembling fingers.
+
+Just before midnight Ahmed arrived with his two friends. Gregorio saw
+them at once, and, calling them to him, they spoke together in low
+voices for a few moments. There was little need for words, and soon,
+scarcely noticed by the drinkers and gamblers, they passed out into
+the street and walked slowly toward the Jew's house. Ahmed rapidly
+repeated the plan of action. When they reached the door they stood for
+a moment before they woke the Arab, and these words passed between
+them:
+
+"For a wife."
+
+"For a sister."
+
+"For a son."
+
+Gregorio then demanded admittance and led the way, followed by his
+three friends. He had visited the house of Amos before, on less bloody
+but less delightful business, and he did not hesitate, but strode on
+to where he knew the Jew would be. His companions stood behind the
+curtain, awaiting the signal.
+
+Amos looked somewhat surprised at the Greek's entrance, but motioned
+him to a seat, and, as on the occasion of his first visit, clapped his
+hands together as a signal that coffee and pipes were required.
+
+"It is kind of you to come, for doubtless you wish to pay me what is
+owing."
+
+"I wish to pay you."
+
+"That is well. I hope you are better again. I regretted to find you so
+ill two nights ago."
+
+"I am better."
+
+The conversation ceased, for Gregorio was restless and his fingers
+itched to do their work. Something in his manner alarmed Amos, for he
+summoned in two of his servants and raised himself slightly, as if the
+better to avoid an attack. But he continued to smoke calmly, watching
+the Greek under his half-closed lids.
+
+"I have another piece of business to settle with you."
+
+"Do you want to borrow more money because I refuse to lend you any?"
+
+"No; it is you who have borrowed, and I have come to you to receive
+back my own."
+
+"I fail to understand you."
+
+Gregorio tried to keep calm, but it was not possible. Rising to his
+feet, he bent over the Jew and cried out:
+
+"Give me back my son, you Jew dog!"
+
+"Your son is not here."
+
+"You lie! by God, you lie! If he is not here you have murdered him."
+
+"Madman!" shouted Amos, as the Greek's knife flashed from its sheath;
+but before he or his servants could stay the uplifted arm the Jew sank
+back among his cushions, wounded to the heart. With a shout of triumph
+and a "Death of all Jews!" Gregorio turned savagely on the servants
+and, reinforced by his companions, soon succeeded in slaying them.
+Then leaving the dead side by side, the four men dashed through the
+house seeking fresh victims. Ten minutes later they were in the street
+again, dripping with the blood of women and men, for in their fury
+they had killed every human being in the house.
+
+Down the narrow native streets they pushed on quickly, hugging the
+shadows, toward the Penny-farthing Shop. Madam Marx, her ears
+sharpened by fear, heard them, admitted them by a side door, and led
+them quickly to an upper room. Thither she carried water and clean
+garments, but dared not ask any questions. Sick with anxiety, she
+re-entered the bar and waited.
+
+At length the murderers appeared and called for coffee, and Madam Marx
+attended to their wants. In a few minutes the Egyptians left, and
+Gregorio and she were alone. Coming near him, she placed her hand
+timidly on his shoulder, and asked him, in a hoarse whisper, to tell
+her what had happened.
+
+"My son was not there."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, you can guess the rest. Not one person remains alive of that
+devil's household."
+
+Madam Marx gasped at the magnitude of the crime, and though her
+terrors increased, her pride in the man capable of so tremendous
+revenge increased also.
+
+"What will happen to you?" she found voice to ask.
+
+"Nothing. I must hide here. We were not seen. Besides, you remember
+the last time a Greek murdered a Jew--it was at Port Said--the matter
+was hushed up. Our consuls care as little for Jews as we do. My God,
+how glad I am I killed him!"
+
+His eyes were fixed on the street as he spoke, and suddenly he started
+to his feet. Madam rose too, and clung to him. He pushed her roughly
+on one side, while an evil smile played on his lips.
+
+"By God, she shall come back now!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Xantippe. There is no need for her to live with the Englishman now.
+Our son is dead and the Jew in hell. I will at least have my wife
+back."
+
+"She will not come."
+
+"She will come. By God, I will make her! I have tasted blood to-night,
+and I am not a child to be treated with contempt. I say I will make
+her come."
+
+"But if she refuses?"
+
+"Then I will take care she does not go back to the Englishman."
+
+"You will--" but madam's voice faltered. Gregorio read her meaning and
+laughed a yes.
+
+"But, Gregorio, think; you will be hanged for that. You wife is not a
+Jewess."
+
+But Gregorio laughed again and strode into the street. He was mad with
+grief and the intoxicating draughts of vengeance he had swallowed. He
+strode across the road and mounted the stairs with steady feet. Madam
+Marx followed him, weeping and calling on him to come back. As he
+reached the door of his room she flung herself before him, but he
+pushed her on one side with his feet and shut the door behind him as
+he entered.
+
+Lying on the threshold, she heard the bolt fastened, and knew the last
+act of the tragedy was begun.
+
+
+XI
+HUSBAND AND WIFE
+
+As Gregorio entered the room, Xantippe, who was kneeling by a box into
+which she was placing clothes neatly folded, turned her head and said
+laughingly:
+
+"You are impatient, my friend; I have nearly--"
+
+But recognising Gregorio, she did not finish the sentence. She sat
+down on the edge of the box. Her face became white, and the blood left
+her lips. With a great effort she remained quiet and folded her hands
+on her lap.
+
+Gregorio looked at her for a moment, a cruel smile making his sinister
+face appear almost terrible, and his bloodshot eyes glared at her
+savagely. At last he broke the silence by shouting her name hoarsely,
+making at the same time a movement toward her. He looked like a wild
+animal about to spring upon his prey. Xantippe, however, did not
+flinch, answering softly:
+
+"I am not deaf. What do you want here?"
+
+"It is my room; I suppose I have a right to be here."
+
+"I apologise for having intruded."
+
+"None of your smooth speeches. The Englishman has schooled you
+carefully, I see. Can you say 'good-bye' in English yet?"
+
+"Why should I say 'good-bye'?"
+
+"It is time. You will come back to me now."
+
+"Never."
+
+Gregorio laughed hysterically and stood beside her. His fingers played
+with her hair. In spite of her fear lest she should irritate him,
+Xantippe shrank from his touch. Gregorio noticed her aversion and said
+savagely:
+
+"You must get used to me, Xantippe. From to-night we live together
+again. It is not necessary now for you to earn money."
+
+"I shall not come back to you. I have told you I hate you. It is your
+own fault that I leave you."
+
+"It will be my fault if you do leave me."
+
+He pushed her on to the mattress and held her there.
+
+"Let us talk," he said.
+
+For a few minutes there was silence, and then he continued:
+
+"Amos is dead, and our debts are paid."
+
+"How did you pay them?"
+
+"With this," and as he spoke he touched the handle of his knife.
+"Don't shudder; he deserved it, and I shall be safe in a few days.
+These affairs are quickly forgotten. Besides, there is another reason
+why we should not live as we have lately been living."
+
+Xantippe opened her eyes as she asked, "What reason?"
+
+Gregorio relaxed his hold, for the memory of his loss shook him with
+sobs. Cat-like, Xantippe had waited her opportunity and sprang away
+from his grasp. The movement brought the man to his senses. He rushed
+at her with an oath, waving the knife in his hand. Xantippe prepared
+to defend herself. They stood, desperate, before each other, neither
+daring to begin the struggle. Through the awful silence came the sound
+of sobs and a plaintive voice crying:
+
+"Gregorio, come back, leave her; I love you."
+
+"Is Madam Marx outside?" hissed Xantippe.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then go to her. I tell you I hate you." She pointed to the half-
+filled box--"I was going to leave here to-night. I will never return
+to you."
+
+"You were going with the Englishman?"
+
+"He is a man."
+
+Gregorio paused a moment, then in a suppressed voice, half choking at
+the words, said:
+
+"Our son--do you know what has happened to him? You shall not leave
+me."
+
+"I know about our son. I am glad to think he is away from your evil
+influence. Let me pass." Xantippe moved toward the door, but Gregorio
+seized her by the throat.
+
+"You are glad our son is killed; you helped Amos to kill him."
+
+Rage and despair impelled him. Laughing brutally, he struck her on the
+breast, and, as he tottered, sent his knife deep into her heart. For a
+few seconds he stood over her exulting, and then opened the door.
+Madam Marx, white with fear, rushed into the room. Seeing the murdered
+woman, a look of triumph came into her eyes. But it was a momentary
+triumph, for she realised at once the gravity of the crime. She had
+little pity or sorrow to waste on the dead, but she was full of
+concern for the safety of the murderer.
+
+"This is a bad night's work, Gregorio."
+
+"Is it? She deserved death. I am glad I killed her. God, how
+peacefully I shall sleep tonight!"
+
+"This is a worse matter than the other, my friend; you must get away
+from here at once."
+
+"Let us leave the corpse; I am thirsty," Gregorio answered, callously.
+With a last look at Xantippe dead upon the floor, the two left the
+room and made fast the bolt before descending the stairs. As they
+emerged from the doorway into the street, some police rode by, and
+Gregorio trembled a little as he stood watching them.
+
+"I want a drink; I am trembling," he said, huskily, and followed Madam
+Marx into the shop.
+
+The sun was beginning to rise, and already signs of a new life were
+stirring. The day-workers appeared at the windows and in the streets.
+
+"You must get away at night, Gregorio, and keep hidden all day."
+
+"All right. Give me some wine. I can arrange better when my thirst is
+satisfied."
+
+After drinking deeply he turned and laughed. "It has been a busy time
+since sunset."
+
+Then, as if a new idea suddenly struck him, he queried cunningly,
+"There will be a reward offered?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Then you will be a rich woman."
+
+Madam Marx flung herself at his feet and wept bitterly. The blow was a
+cruel one indeed. Eagerly she entreated him to retract his words. She
+reminded him of all she had done for him, of all she would still do. A
+sort of eloquence came to her as she pleaded her cause, and Gregorio,
+weary with excitement, kissed her as he asked:
+
+"But why should you not give me up?"
+
+"Because I love you."
+
+Neither blood nor cruelty could stain him in her eyes.
+
+At last her passion spent itself; calmed and soothed by Gregorio's
+caress she realised again the danger her lover ran. Vainly were plans
+discussed; no fair chance of escape seemed open. At last Gregorio
+said:
+
+"I shall leave here to-night for Ramleh and live in the desert for a
+time. If you help me we can manage easily. When my beard is grown I
+can get back here safely enough, and the matter will be forgotten. You
+must collect food and take it by train to the last station, and get
+the box buried by Ahmed near the palace. I can creep toward it at
+night unseen."
+
+"But I will come to you at night and bring food and drink."
+
+"No. That would only attract attention. You must not leave your
+customers. But the drink is the worst part of the matter. I must have
+water. Get as many ostrich-eggs as you can, and fill them with water,
+and seal them. Hide these with the food, and I will carry some of them
+into the farther desert and bury them there."
+
+"Gregorio, if all comes right you will not be sorry you killed her?"
+
+"She hated me. I shall not be sorry."
+
+And Madam Marx smiled and forgot her fears.
+
+
+XII
+IN THE DESERT AND ON THE SEA
+
+By the last train leaving Alexandria for Ramleh, the next evening,
+Gregorio sought to escape his pursuers. He had heard from Ahmed on the
+platform, just before starting, that Xantippe's body had been
+discovered, and that already the police were on his track. He sat in a
+corner of a third-class carriage closely muffled, and eyeing his
+neighbours suspiciously. He sighed with relief as the train moved out
+of the station and began to pass by the sand-hills and white villas,
+showing ghost-like in the damp mist.
+
+When he reached St. Antonio he saw the lights of the casino blazing
+cheerfully, and the pure clear desert air invigorated him. Fascinated
+by the glare, he strolled toward the casino and decided, in spite of
+the risk, to enter. He watched from a corner the players, and greedily
+coveted the masses of gold and silver piled in pyramids behind the
+croupiers. He heard the violins playing Suppe's overture, and the
+remembrance came vividly to him of the Paradiso and the fair girl with
+whom the Englishman talked. The exciting events following that evening
+passed before him--a lurid panorama.
+
+An hour fled quickly away; then he sought the solitude of the desert,
+and, having collected into a bag as much food and as many eggs as he
+could carry, he walked away over the sands.
+
+Under the stars he dug holes wherein to bury the eggs, and marked the
+spots with stones; then, wrapping himself in his cloak, lay down to
+sleep. All next day he loitered idly about, shunning the gaze of every
+wandering Arab. When evening came he drew near to the palace to seek
+for food. To his horror, the box had not been refilled. At first he
+hardly realised how awful was his plight. Then the truth dawned upon
+him. Ahmed and Madam Marx must have been arrested. He drew near to the
+casino and stood under the open windows listening. A cold shudder ran
+down his back, his face grew pale, and his lips trembled, for he heard
+two men discussing the murder and the capture of his friends. An
+involuntary smile lighted up the gloom of his features for a moment as
+one remarked that the chief offender, the woman's husband, had eluded
+pursuit. Then he crept back into the desert and waited for the dawn.
+
+The sun rose, fiery and relentless, glittering on the waters of
+Aboukir, and the cloudless heaven blazed like a prairie on fire. At
+midday, when its rays fell straight upon him, his thirst became
+intense, and with feverish fingers he dug up an egg. It was empty. He
+tossed it away and dragged himself to another hole. The second egg was
+empty. In turn he dug up all his eggs, and all alike were empty.
+Improperly sealed, scantily covered by the sand, the water had
+evaporated. A great despair seized him; he called on God in his
+anguish, and the silence of the desert terrified him. In a fit of
+desolate anger he pulled off his cap, and summoned all the saints,
+Christ, and God Himself, to enter it, and then trampled on it,
+laughing wildly. Then he flung himself upon the sand, his head still
+left bare to the pitiless sun. He knew the end had come, but there was
+not any regret in his heart for his crimes, only an impotent dismay
+and anger at his solitary condition. The thirst increased every
+minute, and he gripped the sand with his fingers in his agony. His
+last word was an oath.
+
+At sunset he was dead.
+
+Two days later Madam Marx left Alexandria by train for Ramleh. There
+was no evidence against her, and she had soon been released. Her own
+trouble scarcely disconcerted her; she had feared only for the Greek
+in the desert. The thought of his agony, his hunger, goaded her nearly
+to madness; but she was a little comforted when she remembered the
+eggs. There was enough water in them to last him two or three days. It
+was the hour of sunset when she arrived, and she instantly set out
+desertward, carrying a basket containing wine and food. She had
+determined to live at the hotel until the days of persecution were
+past. The heavy sand made it hard to proceed rapidly, but she
+struggled on bravely, and when far enough from civilisation called
+aloud the signal-word agreed on. But no one answered. All through the
+night she wandered, searching, till within an hour of sunrise; then
+she gave way and sat weeping on the sand. With daylight she rose to
+her feet, determined to find her lover, but had scarcely gone twenty
+yards before, with a low cry of grief, she knelt beside the body of a
+dead man. In the half-eaten, decayed features she recognised Gregorio
+and knew she had come too late. Undeterred by the hideous spectacle,
+she kissed him tenderly and lay beside him.
+
+The sun mounted slowly in the heavens.
+
+The living figure lay as lifeless as the dead. But after a while the
+woman rose and dug with her hands a hollow in the sand. She heeded not
+the heat, nor the flight of time, and by evening her work was done.
+
+Raising the body in her arms, she carried it to the hollow and laid it
+gently down, then tearfully shovelled back the sand till it was
+hidden. So Gregorio found a tomb. Nor did it remain unconsecrated, for
+beside it Madam Marx knelt and spoke with faltering lips the remnants
+of the prayers she had learned when a child. As she prayed she watched
+vaguely a steamer disappear behind the horizon.
+
+
+The khedival mail-boat /Ramses/ sped swiftly over the unruffled
+surface of the sea. At the stern a tall fair Englishman sat looking on
+the level shores of Egypt and the minarets of Alexandria. With a sad
+smile he turned to the child who called to him by his name. They were
+a strange pair, for the boy was dark, and foreign-looking, and there
+was something of cunning in his restless black eyes. The man's large
+hand rested softly on the raven curls of the youngster as he muttered
+to himself:
+
+"For her sake I will watch over you, and you shall grow up to be a
+true man."
+
+So Xantippe's life had not been lived in vain, for she had loved and
+been loved, and her memory was sweet to her lover. Moreover,
+Gregorio's dreams of wealth for his son were to find fulfilment, and
+the sand of the desert, maybe, lies lightly on him.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext Stories by English Authors in Africa
+
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