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diff --git a/2035.txt b/2035.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed11043 --- /dev/null +++ b/2035.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4860 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories by English Authors: Orient, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Stories by English Authors: Orient + +Author: Various + +Release Date: March 25, 2006 [EBook #2035] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: ORIENT *** + + + + +Produced by Dagny; and John Bickers + + + + + +STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS + +ORIENT + + + + +CONTENTS: + + THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, Rudyard Kipling + TAJIMA, Miss Mitford + A CHINESE GIRL GRADUATE, R. K. Douglas + THE REVENGE OF HER RACE, Mary Beaumont + KING BILLY OF BALLARAT, Morley Roberts + THY HEART'S DESIRE, Netta Syrett + + + + +THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, By Rudyard Kipling + + Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found + worthy + +The Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not +easy to follow. I have been fellow to a beggar again and again under +circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether the other +was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came +near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King, and was +promised the reversion of a Kingdom--army, law-courts, revenue, and +policy all complete. But, to-day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, +and if I want a crown I must go hunt it for myself. + +The beginning of everything was in a railway-train upon the road to Mhow +from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated +travelling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-Class, +but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions +in the Intermediate class, and the population are either Intermediate, +which is Eurasian, or native, which for a long night journey is nasty, +or Loafer, which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not buy +from refreshment-rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and +buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside +water. This is why in hot weather Intermediates are taken out of the +carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked down upon. + +My particular Intermediate happened to be empty till I reached +Nasirabad, when the big black-browed gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, +and, following the custom of Intermediates, passed the time of day. He +was a wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with an educated +taste for whisky. He told tales of things he had seen and done, of +out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and +of adventures in which he risked his life for a few days' food. + +"If India was filled with men like you and me, not knowing more than +the crows where they'd get their next day's rations, it isn't seventy +millions of revenue the land would be paying--it's seven hundred +millions," said he; and as I looked at his mouth and chin I was disposed +to agree with him. + +We talked politics,--the politics of Loaferdom that sees things from +the under side where the lath and plaster is not smoothed off,--and we +talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram +back from the next station to Ajmir, the turning-off place from the +Bombay to the Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend had no money +beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at +all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was +going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the +Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to +help him in any way. + +"We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick," +said my friend, "but that'd mean inquiries for you and for me, and +_I_'ve got my hands full these days. Did you say you were travelling +back along this line within any days?" + +"Within ten," I said. + +"Can't you make it eight?" said he. "Mine is rather urgent business." + +"I can send your telegrams within ten days if that will serve you," I +said. + +"I couldn't trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It's this +way. He leaves Delhi on the 23rd for Bombay. That means he'll be running +through Ajmir about the night of the 23rd." + +"But I'm going into the Indian Desert," I explained. + +"Well _and_ good," said he. "You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to +get into Jodhpore territory,--you must do that,--and he'll be coming +through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the +Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction on that time? 'T won't be +inconveniencing you, because I know that there's precious few pickings +to be got out of these Central India States--even though you pretend to +be correspondent of the 'Backwoodsman.'" + +"Have you ever tried that trick?" I asked. + +"Again and again, but the Residents find you out, and then you get +escorted to the Border before you've time to get your knife into them. +But about my friend here. I _must_ give him a word o' mouth to tell him +what's come to me, or else he won't know where to go. I would take it +more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to +catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him, 'He has gone South for the +week.' He'll know what that means. He's a big man with a red beard, and +a great swell he is. You'll find him sleeping like a gentleman with +all his luggage round him in a Second-class apartment. But don't you be +afraid. Slip down the window and say, 'He has gone South for the week,' +and he'll tumble. It's only cutting your time of stay in those parts +by two days. I ask you as a stranger--going to the West," he said, with +emphasis. + +"Where have _you_ come from?" said I. + +"From the East," said he, "and I am hoping that you will give him the +message on the Square--for the sake of my Mother as well as your own." + +Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals to the memory of their +mothers; but for certain reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw +fit to agree. + +"It's more than a little matter," said he, "and that's why I asked +you to do it--and now I know that I can depend on you doing it. A +Second-class carriage at Marwar Junction, and a red-haired man asleep +in it. You'll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I +must hold on there till he comes or sends me what I want." + +"I'll give the message if I catch him," I said, "and for the sake of +your Mother as well as mine I'll give you a word of advice. Don't try +to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the +'Backwoodsman.' There's a real one knocking about here, and it might +lead to trouble." + +"Thank you," said he, simply; "and when will the swine be gone? I +can't starve because he's ruining my work. I wanted to get hold of the +Degumber Rajah down here about his father's widow, and give him a jump." + +"What did he do to his father's widow, then?" + +"Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung +from a beam. I found that out myself, and I'm the only man that would +dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They'll try to +poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. +But you'll give the man at Marwar Junction my message?" + +He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard, +more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and +bleeding small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never +met any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die +with great suddenness. The Native States have a wholesome horror of +English newspapers, which may throw light on their peculiar methods of +government, and do their best to choke correspondents with champagne, +or drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand barouches. They do not +understand that nobody cares a straw for the internal administration +of Native States so long as oppression and crime are kept within decent +limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one end +of the year to the other. They are the dark places of the earth, full +of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway and the Telegraph on one +side, and, on the other, the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the +train I did business with divers Kings, and in eight days passed through +many changes of life. Sometimes I wore dress-clothes and consorted with +Princes and Politicals, drinking from crystal and eating from silver. +Sometimes I lay out upon the ground and devoured what I could get, from +a plate made of leaves, and drank the running water, and slept under the +same rug as my servant. It was all in the day's work. + +Then I headed for the Great Indian Desert upon the proper date, as I +had promised, and the night Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where +a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native-managed railway runs to Jodhpore. +The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrived +just as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and go +down the carriages. There was only one Second-class on the train. +I slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming-red beard, half +covered by a railway-rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him +gently in the ribs. He woke with a grunt, and I saw his face in the +light of the lamps. It was a great and shining face. + +"Tickets again?" said he. + +"No," said I. "I am to tell you that he is gone South for the week. He +has gone South for the week!" + +The train had begun to move out. The red man rubbed his eyes. "He +has gone South for the week," he repeated. "Now that's just like his +impidence. Did he say that I was to give you anything? 'Cause I won't." + +"He didn't," I said, and dropped away, and watched the red lights die +out in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off +the sands. I climbed into my own train--not an Intermediate carriage +this time--and went to sleep. + +If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as +a memento of a rather curious affair. But the consciousness of having +done my duty was my only reward. + +Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my friends could not do any +good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers, +and might, if they blackmailed one of the little rat-trap States +of Central India or Southern Rajputana, get themselves into serious +difficulties. I therefore took some trouble to describe them as +accurately as I could remember to people who would be interested in +deporting them; and succeeded, so I was later informed, in having them +headed back from the Degumber borders. + +Then I became respectable, and returned to an office where there were no +Kings and no incidents outside the daily manufacture of a newspaper. A +newspaper office seems to attract every conceivable sort of person, to +the prejudice of discipline. Zenana-mission ladies arrive, and beg that +the Editor will instantly abandon all his duties to describe a Christian +prize-giving in a back slum of a perfectly inaccessible village; +Colonels who have been overpassed for command sit down and sketch the +outline of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leading articles on +Seniority _versus_ Selection; missionaries wish to know why they have +not been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse, and +swear at a brother missionary under special patronage of the editorial +We; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannot +pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New Zealand +or Tahiti will do so with interest; inventors of patent punka-pulling +machines, carriage couplings, and unbreakable swords and axletrees call +with specifications in their pockets and hours at their disposal; tea +companies enter and elaborate their prospectuses with the office pens; +secretaries of ball committees clamour to have the glories of their last +dance more fully described; strange ladies rustle in and say, "I want +a hundred lady's cards printed _at once_, please," which is manifestly +part of an Editor's duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped +the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for employment as a +proof-reader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, +and Kings are being killed on the Continent, and Empires are saying, +"You're another," and Mister Gladstone is calling down brimstone upon +the British Dominions, and the little black copyboys are whining, +"_kaa-pi chay-ha-yeh_" ("Copy wanted"), like tired bees, and most of the +paper is as blank as Modred's shield. + +But that is the amusing part of the year. There are six other months +when none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch +up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just above +reading-light, and the press-machines are red-hot to touch, and nobody +writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations or +obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because +it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew +intimately, and the prickly heat covers you with a garment, and you +sit down and write: "A slight increase of sickness is reported from +the Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in +its nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District +authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret +we record the death," etc. + +Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less recording and +reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires +and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and +the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in +twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the +middle of their amusements say, "Good gracious! why can't the paper be +sparkling? I'm sure there's plenty going on up here." + +That is the dark half of the moon, and, as the advertisements say, "must +be experienced to be appreciated." + +It was in that season, and a remarkably evil season, that the paper +began running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to +say Sunday morning, after the custom of a London paper. This was a great +convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed the dawn +would lower the thermometer from 96 degrees to almost 84 degrees for +half an hour, and in that chill--you have no idea how cold is 84 degrees +on the grass until you begin to pray for it--a very tired man could get +off to sleep ere the heat roused him. + +One Saturday night it was my pleasant duty to put the paper to bed +alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a Community was going to +die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was important on +the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the +latest possible minute in order to catch the telegram. + +It was a pitchy-black night, as stifling as a June night can be, and +the _loo_, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the +tinder-dry trees and pretending that the rain was on its heels. Now and +again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the +flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretence. It +was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, +while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the +windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their +foreheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, +whatever it was, would not come off, though the loo dropped and the last +type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, +with its finger on its lip, to wait the event. I drowsed, and wondered +whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or +struggling people, might be aware of the inconvenience the delay was +causing. There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry to make +tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o-clock and the +machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was +in order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could have +shrieked aloud. + +Then the roar and rattle of the wheels shivered the quiet into little +bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front +of me. The first one said, "It's him!" The second said, "So it is!" And +they both laughed almost as loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped +their foreheads. "We seed there was a light burning across the road, +and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my +friend here, 'The office is open. Let's come along and speak to him as +turned us back from Degumber State,'" said the smaller of the two. +He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the +red-bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows +of the one or the beard of the other. + +I was not pleased, because I wished to go to sleep, not to squabble with +loafers. "What do you want?" I asked. + +"Half an hour's talk with you, cool and comfortable, in the office," +said the red-bearded man. "We'd _like_ some drink,--the Contrack doesn't +begin yet, Peachey, so you needn't look,--but what we really want is +advice. We don't want money. We ask you as a favour, because we found +out you did us a bad turn about Degumber State." + +I led from the press-room to the stifling office with the maps on the +walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. "That's something +like," said he. "This was the proper shop to come to. Now, Sir, let +me introduce you to Brother Peachey Carnehan, that's him, and Brother +Daniel Dravot, that is _me_, and the less said about our professions +the better, for we have been most things in our time--soldier, +sailor, compositor, photographer, proof-reader, street-preacher, and +correspondents of the 'Backwoodsman' when we thought the paper wanted +one. Carnehan is sober, and so am I. Look at us first, and see that's +sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll take one of your +cigars apiece, and you shall see us light up." + +I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a +tepid whisky-and-soda. + +"Well _and_ good," said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth +from his moustache. "Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, +mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty +contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn't big +enough for such as us." + +They certainly were too big for the office. Dravot's beard seemed to +fill half the room and Carnehan's shoulders the other half, as they sat +on the big table. Carnehan continued: "The country isn't half worked +out because they that governs it won't let you touch it. They spend all +their blessed time in governing it, and you can't lift a spade, nor +chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that, without all the +Government saying, 'Leave it alone, and let us govern.' Therefore, such +_as_ it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where +a man isn't crowded and can come to his own. We are not little men, and +there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed +a Contrack on that. _Therefore_ we are going away to be Kings." + +"Kings in our own right," muttered Dravot. + +"Yes, of course," I said. "You've been tramping in the sun, and it's +a very warm night, and hadn't you better sleep over the notion? Come +to-morrow." + +"Neither drunk nor sunstruck," said Dravot. "We have slept over the +notion half a year, and require to see Books and Atlases, and we have +decided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong +men can Sar-a-_whack_. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it's the +top right-hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles +from Peshawar. They have two and thirty heathen idols there, and we'll +be the thirty-third and fourth. It's a mountaineous country, the women +of those parts are very beautiful." + +"But that is provided against in the Contrack," said Carnehan. "Neither +Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel." + +"And that's all we know, except that no one has gone there, and they +fight, and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill +men can always be a King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King +we find, 'D' you want to vanquish your foes?' and we will show him how +to drill men; for that we know better than anything else. Then we will +subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty." + +"You'll be cut to pieces before you're fifty miles across the Border," +I said. "You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. +It's one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has +been through it. The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached +them you couldn't do anything." + +"That's more like," said Carnehan. "If you could think us a little more +mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this +country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to +tell us that we are fools and to show us your books." He turned to the +bookcases. + +"Are you at all in earnest?" I said. + +"A little," said Dravot, sweetly. "As big a map as you have got, even +if it's all blank where Kafiristan is, and any books you've got. We can +read, though we aren't very educated." + +I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India and two +smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the "Encyclopaedia +Britannica," and the men consulted them. + +"See here!" said Dravot, his thumb on the map. "Up to Jagdallak, Peachey +and me know the road. We was there with Robert's Army. We'll have to +turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then we +get among the hills--fourteen thousand feet--fifteen thousand--it will +be cold work there, but it don't look very far on the map." + +I handed him Wood on the "Sources of the Oxus." Carnehan was deep in the +"Encyclopaedia." + +"They're a mixed lot," said Dravot, reflectively; "and it won't help +us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they'll +fight, and the better for us. From Jagdallak to Ashang. H'mm!" + +"But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate +as can be," I protested. "No one knows anything about it really. Here's +the file of the 'United Services' Institute.' Read what Bellew says." + +"Blow Bellew!" said Carnehan. "Dan, they're a stinkin' lot of heathens, +but this book here says they think they're related to us English." + +I smoked while the men poured over Raverty, Wood, the maps, and the +"Encyclopaedia." + +"There is no use your waiting," said Dravot, politely. "It's about four +o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we +won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless +lunatics, and if you come to-morrow evening down to the Serai we'll say +good-bye to you." + +"You _are_ two fools," I answered. "You'll be turned back at the +Frontier or cut up the minute you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want +any money or a recommendation down-country? I can help you to the chance +of work next week." + +"Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you," said Dravot. +"It isn't so easy being a King as it looks. When we've got our Kingdom +in going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us +govern it." + +"Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that?" said Carnehan, with +subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of notepaper on which was +written the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity. + + This Contracx between me and you persuing witnesseth in + the name of God--Amen and so forth. + + (One) That me and you will settle this matter + together; i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan. + + (Two) That you and me will not, while this + matter is being settled, look at any + Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white, + or brown, so as to get mixed up with + one or the other harmful. + + (Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity + and Discretion, and if one of us gets + into trouble the other will stay by him. + + Signed by you and me this day. + Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan. + Daniel Dravot. + Both Gentlemen at Large. + +"There was no need for the last article," said Carnehan, blushing +modestly; "but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that +loafers are,--we _are_ loafers, Dan, until we get out of India,--and +_do_ you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was +in earnest? We have kept away from the two things that make life worth +having." + +"You won't enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this +idiotic adventure. Don't set the office on fire," I said, "and go away +before nine o'clock." + +I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back +of the "Contrack." "Be sure to come down to the Serai to-morrow," were +their parting words. + +The Kumharsen Serai is the great foursquare sink of humanity where the +strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the +nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk +of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try +to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats, +saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep, and musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get +many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down to see +whether my friends intended to keep their word or were lying there +drunk. + +A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked up to me, +gravely twisting a child's paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant +bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up +two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks +of laughter. + +"The priest is mad," said a horse-dealer to me. "He is going up to Kabul +to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honour or have his +head cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly +ever since." + +"The witless are under the protection of God," stammered a flat-cheeked +Usbeg in broken Hindi. "They foretell future events." + +"Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up +by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!" grunted the Eusufzai +agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been diverted into +the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes +were the laughing-stock of the bazaar. "Ohe, priest, whence come you and +whither do you go?" + +"From Roum have I come," shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; "from +Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, +robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! +Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are +never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not +fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, +of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to +slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? +The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labours!" He spread out the +skirts of his gabardine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered +horses. + +"There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, +_Huzrut_," said the Eusufzai trader. "My camels go therewith. Do thou +also go and bring us good luck." + +"I will go even now!" shouted the priest. "I will depart upon my winged +camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan," he yelled to +his servant, "drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own." + +He leaped on the back of his beast as it knelt, and, turning round to +me, cried, "Come thou also, Sahib, a little along the road, and I will +sell thee a charm--an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan." + +Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the two camels out of the +Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted. + +"What d' you think o' that?" said he in English. "Carnehan can't talk +their patter, so I've made him my servant. He makes a handsome servant. +'T isn't for nothing that I've been knocking about the country for +fourteen years. Didn't I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan +at Peshawar till we get to Jagdallak, and then we'll see if we can get +donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the +Amir, O Lor'! Put your hand under the camelbags and tell me what you +feel." + +I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and another. + +"Twenty of 'em," said Dravot, placidly. "Twenty of 'em and ammunition to +correspond, under the whirligigs and the mud dolls." + +"Heaven help you if you are caught with those things!" I said. "A +Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans." + +"Fifteen hundred rupees of capital--every rupee we could beg, borrow, +or steal--are invested on these two camels," said Dravot. "We won't get +caught. We're going through the Khaiber with a regular caravan. Who'd +touch a poor mad priest?" + +"Have you got everything you want?" I asked, overcome with astonishment. + +"Not yet, but we shall soon. Give us a momento of your kindness, +_Brother_. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half +my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is." I slipped a small charm +compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest. + +"Good-bye," said Dravot, giving me hand cautiously. "It's the last time +we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with +him, Carnehan," he cried, as the second camel passed me. + +Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along +the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no +failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai proved that they were +complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that +Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without +detection. But, beyond, they would find death--certain and awful death. + +Ten days later a native correspondent, giving me the news of the day +from Peshawar, wound up his letter with: "There has been much laughter +here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation +to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as +great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar +and associated himself to the Second Summer caravan that goes to Kabul. +The merchants are pleased because through superstition they imagine that +such mad fellows bring good fortune." + +The two, then, were beyond the Border. I would have prayed for them, but +that night a real King died in Europe, and demanded an obituary notice. + + +The wheel of the world swings through the same phases again and again. +Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The +daily paper continued and I with it, and upon the third summer there +fell a hot night, a night issue, and a strained waiting for something to +be telegraphed from the other side of the world, exactly as had happened +before. A few great men had died in the past two years, the machines +worked with more clatter, and some of the trees in the office garden +were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference. + +I passed over to the press-room, and went through just such a scene as +I have already described. The nervous tension was stronger than it +had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three +o'clock I cried, "Print off," and turned to go, when there crept to my +chair what was left of a man. He was bent into a circle, his head was +sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other +like a bear. I could hardly see whether he walked or crawled--this +rag-wrapped, whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he +was come back. "Can you give me a drink?" he whimpered. "For the Lord's +sake, give me a drink!" + +I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I +turned up the lamp. + +"Don't you know me?" he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his +drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light. + +I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over +the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not +tell where. + +"I don't know you," I said, handing him the whisky. "What can I do for +you?" + +He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the +suffocating heat. + +"I've come back," he repeated; "and I was the King of Kafiristan--me and +Dravot--crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it--you setting +there and giving us the books. I am Peachey,--Peachey Taliaferro +Carnehan,--and you've been setting here ever since--O Lord!" + +I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings +accordingly. + +"It's true," said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which +were wrapped in rags--"true as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon +our heads--me and Dravot--poor Dan--oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never +take advice, not though I begged of him!" + +"Take the whisky," I said, "and take your own time. Tell me all you can +recollect of everything from beginning to end. You got across the Border +on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do +you remember that?" + +"I ain't mad--yet, but I shall be that way soon. Of course I remember. +Keep looking at me, or maybe my words will go all to pieces. Keep +looking at me in my eyes and don't say anything." + +I leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He +dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It +was twisted like a bird's claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, +diamond-shaped scar. + +"No, don't look there. Look at _me_," said Carnehan. "That comes +afterward, but for the Lord's sake don't distrack me. We left with that +caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people +we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh in the evenings when all the +people was cooking their dinners--cooking their dinners, and . . . +what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into +Dravot's beard, and we all laughed--fit to die. Little red fires they +was, going into Dravot's big red beard--so funny." His eyes left mine +and he smiled foolishly. + +"You went as far as Jagdallak with that caravan," I said, at a venture, +"after you had lit those fires. To Jagdallak, where you turned off to +try to get into Kafiristan." + +"No, we didn't, neither. What are you talking about? We turned off +before Jagdallak, because we heard the roads was good. But they wasn't +good enough for our two camels--mine and Dravot's. When we left the +caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would +be heathen, because the Kafirs didn't allow Mohammedans to talk to them. +So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot +I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and +slung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns. +He shaved mine too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like +a heathen. That was in a most mountaineous country, and our camels +couldn't go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and +black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats--there are lots +of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no +more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don't let you sleep +at night." + +"Take some more whisky," I said, very slowly. "What did you and Daniel +Dravot do when the camels could go no farther because of the rough roads +that led into Kafiristan?" + +"What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan +that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in +the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in +the air like a penny whirligig that you can sell to the Amir. No; they +was two for three ha'pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and +woful sore. . . . And then these camels were no use, and Peachey said to +Dravot, 'For the Lord's sake let's get out of this before our heads +are chopped off,' and with that they killed the camels all among the +mountains, not having anything in particular to eat, but first they took +off the boxes with the guns and the ammunition, till two men came along +driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, singing, +'Sell me four mules.' Says the first man, 'If you are rich enough to +buy, you are rich enough to rob;' but before ever he could put his hand +to his knife, Dravot breaks his neck over his knee, and the other party +runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules with the rifles that was taken +off the camels, and together we starts forward into those bitter-cold +mountaineous parts, and never a road broader than the back of your +hand." + +He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the +nature of the country through which he had journeyed. + +"I am telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn't as good as it +might be. They drove nails through it to make me hear better how Dravot +died. The country was mountaineous and the mules were most contrary, +and the inhabitants was dispersed and solitary. They went up and up, and +down and down, and that other party, Carnehan, was imploring of Dravot +not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus +avalanches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn't sing it wasn't worth +being King, and whacked the mules over the rump, and never took no +heed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all among the +mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having +anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and +played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out. + +"Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty +men with bows and arrows, and the row was tremenjus. They was fair +men--fairer than you or me--with yellow hair and remarkable well built. +Says Dravot, unpacking the guns, 'This is the beginning of the business. +We'll fight for the ten men,' and with that he fires two rifles at the +twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock +where he was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan and +Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down the +valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across the snow too, +and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots above their +heads, and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicks +them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to make them +friendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry, and +waves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. They +takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine +wood on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot +he goes to the biggest--a fellow they call Imbra--and lays a rifle and +a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose respectfuly with his own nose, +patting him on the head, and nods his head, and says, 'That's all right. +I'm in the know too, and these old jimjams are my friends.' Then he +opens his mouth and points down it, and when the first man brings him +food, he says, 'No;' and when the second man brings him food, he says +'no;' but when one of the old priests and the boss of the village brings +him food, he says, 'Yes;' very haughty, and eats it slow. That was how +he came to our first village without any trouble, just as though we +had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled from one of those damned +rope-bridges, you see, and--you couldn't expect a man to laugh much +after that?" + +"Take some more whisky and go on," I said. "That was the first village +you came into. How did you get to be King?" + +"I wasn't King," said Carnehan. "Dravot he was the King, and a handsome +man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other +party stayed in that village, and every morning Dravot sat by the side +of old Imbra, and the people came and worshipped. That was Dravot's +order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan Dravot picks +them off with the rifles before they knew where they was, and runs down +into the valley and up again the other side, and finds another village, +same as the first one, and the people all falls down flat on their +faces, and Dravot says, 'Now what is the trouble between you two +villages?' and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that +was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village and +counts up the dead--eight there was. For each dead man Dravot pours +a little milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirligig, and +'That's all right,' says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of +each village by the arm, and walks them down the valley, and shows them +how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each +a sod of turf from both sides of the line. Then all the people comes +down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says, 'Go and dig the +land, and be fruitful and multiply,' which they did, though they didn't +understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo--bread and +water and fire and idols and such; and Dravot leads the priest of each +village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and judge the people, +and if anything goes wrong he is to be shot. + +"Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as +bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and +told Dravot in dumb-show what it was about. 'That's just the beginning,' +says Dravot. 'They think we're Gods.' He and Carnehan picks out twenty +good men and shows them how to click off a rifle and form fours and +advance in line; and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see +the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch, and +leaves one at one village and one at the other, and off we two goes to +see what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there +was a little village there, and Carnehan says, 'Send 'em to the old +valley to plant,' and takes 'em there and gives 'em some land that +wasn't took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded 'em with a kid +before letting 'em into the new Kingdom. That was to impress the people, +and then they settled down quiet, and Carnehan went back to Dravot, who +had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most mountaineous. +There was no people there, and the Army got afraid; so Dravot shoots +one of them, and goes on till he finds some people in a village, and the +Army explains that unless the people wants to be killed they had better +not shoot their little matchlocks, for they had matchlocks. We makes +friends with the priest, and I stays there alone with two of the Army, +teaching the men how to drill; and a thundering big Chief comes across +the snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there was +a new God kicking about. Carnehan sights for the brown of the men half +a mile across the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends a message +to the Chief that, unless he wished to be killed, he must come and shake +hands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, +and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about, same as +Dravot used, and very much surprised that Chief was, and strokes +my eyebrows. Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in +dumb-show if he had an enemy he hated. 'I have,' says the chief. So +Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to +show them drill, and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about +as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain +on the top of a mountain, and the Chief's men rushes into a village and +takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we +took that village too, and I gives the Chief a rag from my coat, and +says, 'Occupy till I come;' which was scriptural. By way of a reminder, +when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet +near him standing on the snow, and all the people falls flat on their +faces. Then I sends a letter to Dravot wherever he be by land or by +sea." + +At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted: "How +could you write a letter up yonder?" + +"The letter?--oh!--the letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes, +please. It was a string-talk letter, that we'd learned the way of it +from a blind beggar in the Punjab." + +I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with +a knotted twig, and a piece of string which he wound round the twig +according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days +or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He had reduced the +alphabet to eleven primitive sounds, and tried to teach me his method, +but I could not understand. + +"I sent that letter to Dravot," said Carnehan, "and told him to come +back because this Kingdom was growing too big for me to handle; and then +I struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were working. They +called the village we took along with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first +village we took, Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, but +they had a lot of pending cases about land to show me, and some men from +another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked +for that village, and fired four rounds at it from a thousand yards. +That used all the cartridges I cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot, +who had been away two or three months, and I kept my people quiet. + +"One morning I heard the devil's own noise of drums and horns, and Dan +Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and a tail of hundreds of +men, and, which was the most amazing, a great gold crown on his head. +'My Gord, Carnehan,' says Daniel, 'this is a tremenjus business, and +we've got the whole country as far as it's worth having. I am the son +of Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and you're my younger brother and a +God too! It's the biggest thing we've ever seen. I've been marching and +fighting for six weeks with the Army, and every footy little village for +fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, I've got the key +of the whole show, as you'll see, and I've got a crown for you! I told +'em to make two of 'em at a place called Shu, where the gold lies in the +rock like suet in mutton. Gold I've seen, and turquoise I've kicked out +of the cliffs, and there's garnets in the sands of the river, and here's +a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and, +here, take your crown.' + +"One of the men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was +too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it +was--five pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel. + +"'Peachey,' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight no more. The Craft's +the trick, so help me!' and he brings forward that same Chief that I +left at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was so +like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in +the old days. 'Shake hands with him,' says Dravot; and I shook hands +and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but +tried him with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I tried +the Master's Grip, but that was a slip. 'A Fellow-craft he is!' I says +to Dan. 'Does he know the word?' 'He does,' says Dan, 'and all the +priests know. It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a +Fellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours, and they've cut the +marks on the rocks, but they don't know the Third Degree, and they've +come to find out. It's Gord's Truth. I've known these long years that +the Afghans knew up to the Fellow-craft Degree, but this is a miracle. +A God and a Grand Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third +Degree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of +the villages.' + +"'It's against all the law,' I says, 'holding a Lodge without warrant +from any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge.' + +"'It's a master stroke o' policy,' says Dravot. 'It means running the +country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can't stop +to inquire now, or they'll turn against us. I've forty Chiefs at my +heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be. +Billet these men on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some +kind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make +aprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of Chiefs to-night and Lodge +to-morrow.' + +"I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn't such a fool as not to see what +a pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests' families how +to make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot's apron the blue border +and marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took +a great square stone in the temple for the Master's chair, and little +stones for the officer's chairs, and painted the black pavement with +white squares, and did what we could to make things regular. + +"At the levee which was held that night on the hillside with big +bonfires, Dravot gives out that him and me were Gods and sons of +Alexander, and Passed Grand Masters in the Craft, and was come to make +Kafiristan a country where every man should eat in peace and drink in +quiet, and specially obey us. Then the Chiefs come round to shake hands, +and they were so hairy and white and fair it was just shaking hands with +old friends. We gave them names according as they was like men we had +known in India--Billy Fish, Holly Dilworth, Pikky Kergan, that was +Bazaar-master when I was at Mhow, and so on, and so on. + +"_The_ most amazing miracles was at Lodge next night. One of the old +priests was watching us continuous, and I felt uneasy, for I knew we'd +have to fudge the Ritual, and I didn't know what the men knew. The old +priest was a stranger come in from beyond the village of Bashkai. The +minute Dravot puts on the Master's apron that the girls had made for +him, the priest fetches a whoop and a howl, and tries to overturn the +stone that Dravot was sitting on. 'It's all up now,' I says. 'That comes +of meddling with the Craft without warrant!' Dravot never winked an +eye, not when ten priests took and tilted over the Grand Master's +chair--which was to say, the stone of Imbra. The priest begins rubbing +the bottom end of it to clear away the black dirt, and presently he +shows all the other priests the Master's Mark, same as was on Dravot's +apron, cut into the stone. Not even the priests of the temple of Imbra +knew it was there. The old chap falls flat on his face at Dravot's feet +and kisses 'em. 'Luck again,' says Dravot, across the Lodge, to me; +'they say it's the missing Mark that no one could understand the why of. +We're more than safe now.' Then he bangs the butt of his gun for a gavel +and says, 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by my own right +hand and the help of Peachey, I declare myself Grand Master of all +Freemasonry in Kafiristan in this the Mother Lodge o' the country, and +King of Kafiristan equally with Peachey!' At that he puts on his crown +and I puts on mine,--I was doing Senior Warden,--and we opens the Lodge +in most ample form. It was an amazing miracle! The priests moved in +Lodge through the first two degrees almost without telling, as if the +memory was coming back to them. After that Peachey and Dravot raised +such as was worthy--high priests and Chiefs of far-off villages. Billy +Fish was the first, and I can tell you we scared the soul out of him. +It was not in any way according to Ritual, but it served our turn. We +didn't raise more than ten of the biggest men, because we didn't want to +make the Degree common. And they was clamouring to be raised. + +"'In another six months,' says Dravot, 'we'll hold another Communication +and see how you are working.' Then he asks them about their villages, +and learns that they was fighting one against the other, and were sick +and tired of it. And when they wasn't doing that they was fighting with +the Mohammedans. 'You can fight those when they come into our country,' +says Dravot. 'Tell off every tenth man of your tribes for a Frontier +guard, and send two hundred at a time to this valley to be drilled. +Nobody is going to be shot or speared any more so long as he does well, +and I know that you won't cheat me, because you're white people--sons of +Alexander--and not like common black Mohammedans. You are _my_ people, +and, by God,' says he, running off into English at the end, 'I'll make a +damned fine Nation of you, or I'll die in the making!' + +"I can't tell all we did for the next six months, because Dravot did a +lot I couldn't see the hang of, and he learned their lingo in a way I +never could. My work was to help the people plough, and now and again +go out with some of the Army and see what the other villages were doing, +and make 'em throw rope bridges across the ravines which cut up the +country horrid. Dravot was very kind to me, but when he walked up and +down in the pine wood pulling that bloody red beard of his with both +fists I knew he was thinking plans I could not advise about, and I just +waited for orders. + +"But Dravot never showed me disrespect before the people. They were +afraid of me and the Army, but they loved Dan. He was the best of +friends with the priests and the Chiefs; but any one could come across +the hills with a complaint, and Dravot would hear him out fair, and call +four priests together and say what was to be done. He used to call in +Billy Fish from Bashkai, and Pikky Kergan from Shu, and an old Chief +we called Kafuzelum,--it was like enough to his real name,--and hold +councils with 'em when there was any fighting to be done in small +villages. That was his Council of War, and the four priests of Bashkai, +Shu, Khawak, and Madora was his Privy Council. Between the lot of 'em +they sent me, with forty men and twenty rifles, and sixty men carrying +turquoises, into the Ghorband country to buy those hand-made Martini +rifles, that come out of the Amir's workshops at Kabul, from one of the +Amir's Herati regiments that would have sold the very teeth out of their +mouths for turquoises. + +"I stayed in Ghorband a month, and gave the Governor there the pick of +my baskets for hush-money, and bribed the Colonel of the regiment some +more, and, between the two and the tribes-people, we got more than a +hundred hand-made Martinis, a hundred good Kohat Jezails that'll throw +to six hundred yards, and forty man-loads of very bad ammunition for the +rifles. I came back with what I had, and distributed 'em among the men +that the Chiefs sent in to me to drill. Dravot was too busy to attend +to those things, but the old Army that we first made helped me, and we +turned out five hundred men that could drill, and two hundred that knew +how to hold arms pretty straight. Even those cork-screwed, hand-made +guns was a miracle to them. Dravot talked big about powder-shops and +factories, walking up and down in the pine wood when the winter was +coming on. + +"'I won't make a Nation,' says he. 'I'll make an Empire! These men +aren't niggers; they're English! Look at their eyes--look at their +mouths. Look at the way they stand up. They sit on chairs in their own +houses. They're the Lost Tribes, or something like it, and they've grown +to be English. I'll take a census in the spring if the priests don't get +frightened. There must be a fair two million of 'em in these hills. The +villages are full o' little children. Two million people--two hundred +and fifty thousand fighting men--and all English! They only want the +rifles and a little drilling. Two hundred and fifty thousand men, ready +to cut in on Russia's right flank when she tries for India! Peachey, +man,' he says, chewing his beard in great hunks, 'we shall be +Emperors--Emperors of the Earth! Rajah Brooke will be a suckling to +us. I'll treat with the Viceroy on equal terms. I'll ask him to send me +twelve picked English--twelve that I know of--to help us govern a bit. +There's Mackray, Serjeant Pensioner at Segowli--many's the good dinner +he's given me, and his wife a pair of trousers. There's Donkin, the +Warder of Tounghoo Jail; there's hundreds that I could lay my hand on if +I was in India. The Viceroy shall do it for me; I'll send a man through +in the spring for those men, and I'll write for a dispensation from +the Grand Lodge for what I've done as Grand Master. That--and all the +Sniders that'll be thrown out when the native troops in India take up +the Martini. They'll be worn smooth, but they'll do for fighting in +these hills. Twelve English, a hundred thousand Sniders run through the +Amir's country in driblets,--I'd be content with twenty thousand in one +year,--and we'd be an Empire. When everything was shipshape I'd hand +over the crown--this crown I'm wearing now--to Queen Victoria on my +knees, and she'd say, "Rise up, Sir Daniel Dravot." Oh, it's big! It's +big, I tell you! But there's so much to be done in every place--Bashkai, +Khawak, Shu, and everywhere else.' + +"'What is it?' I says. 'There are no more men coming in to be drilled +this autumn. Look at those fat black clouds. They're bringing the snow.' + +"'It isn't that,' says Daniel, putting his hand very hard on my +shoulder; 'and I don't wish to say anything that's against you, for no +other living man would have followed me and made me what I am as you +have done. You're a first-class Commander-in-Chief, and the people know +you; but--it's a big country, and somehow you can't help me, Peachey, in +the way I want to be helped.' + +"'Go to your blasted priests, then!' I said, and I was sorry when I made +that remark, but it did hurt me sore to find Daniel talking so superior, +when I'd drilled all the men and done all he told me. + +"'Don't let's quarrel, Peachey,' says Daniel, without cursing. 'You're +a King too, and the half of this Kingdom is yours; but can't you see, +Peachey, we want cleverer men than us now--three or four of 'em, that +we can scatter about for our Deputies. It's a hugeous great State, and +I can't always tell the right thing to do, and I haven't time for all +I want to do, and here's the winter coming on and all.' He put half his +beard into his mouth, all red like the gold of his crown. + +"'I'm sorry, Daniel,' says I. 'I've done all I could. I've drilled +the men and shown the people how to stack their oats better; and I've +brought in those tinware rifles from Ghorband--but I know what you're +driving at. I take it Kings always feel oppressed that way.' + +"'There's another thing too,' says Dravot, walking up and down. 'The +winter's coming, and these people won't be giving much trouble, and if +they do we can't move about. I want a wife.' + +"'For Gord's sake leave the women alone!' I says. 'We've both got all +the work we can, though I _am_ a fool. Remember the Contrack, and keep +clear o' women.' + +"'The Contrack only lasted till such time as we was Kings; and Kings +we have been these months past,' says Dravot, weighing his crown in his +hand. 'You go get a wife too, Peachey--a nice, strappin', plump girl +that'll keep you warm in the winter. They're prettier than English +girls, and we can take the pick of 'em. Boil 'em once or twice in hot +water, and they'll come out like chicken and ham.' + +"'Don't tempt me!' I says. 'I will not have any dealings with a woman, +not till we are a dam' side more settled than we are now. I've been +doing the work o' two men, and you've been doing the work of three. +Let's lie off a bit, and see if we can get some better tobacco from +Afghan country and run in some good liquor; and no women.' + +"'Who's talking o' _women_?' says Dravot. 'I said _wife_--a Queen to +breed a King's son for the King. A Queen out of the strongest tribe, +that'll make them your blood-brothers, and that'll lie by your side and +tell you all the people thinks about you and their own affairs. That's +what I want.' + +"'Do you remember that Bengali woman I kept at Mogul Serai when I was +a plate-layer?' says I. 'A fat lot o' good she was to me. She taught me +the lingo and one or two other things; but what happened? She ran away +with the Station-master's servant and half my month's pay. Then +she turned up at Dadur Junction in tow of a half-caste, and had the +impidence to say I was her husband--all among the drivers in the +running-shed too!' + +"'We've done with that,' says Dravot; 'these women are whiter than you +or me, and a Queen I will have for the winter months.' + +"'For the last time o' asking, Dan, do _not_,' I says. 'It'll only bring +us harm. The Bible says that Kings ain't to waste their strength on +women, 'specially when they've got a new raw Kingdom to work over.' + +"'For the last time of answering, I will,' said Dravot, and he went away +through the pine-trees looking like a big red devil, the sun being on +his crown and beard and all. + +"But getting a wife was not as easy as Dan thought. He put it before the +Council, and there was no answer till Billy Fish said that he'd better +ask the girls. Dravot damned them all round. 'What's wrong with me?' he +shouts, standing by the idol Imbra. 'Am I a dog, or am I not enough of +a man for your wenches? Haven't I put the shadow of my hand over this +country? Who stopped the last Afghan raid?' It was me really, but Dravot +was too angry to remember. 'Who bought your guns? Who repaired the +bridges? Who's the Grand Master of the sign cut in the stone?' says he, +and he thumped his hand on the block that he used to sit on in Lodge, +and at Council, which opened like Lodge always. Billy Fish said nothing, +and no more did the others. 'Keep your hair on, Dan,' said I, 'and ask +the girls. That's how it's done at Home, and these people are quite +English.' + +"'The marriage of the King is a matter of State,' says Dan, in a +white-hot rage, for he could feel, I hope, that he was going against +his better mind. He walked out of the Council-room, and the others sat +still, looking at the ground. + +"'Billy Fish,' says I to the Chief of Bashkai, 'what's the difficulty +here? A straight answer to a true friend.' + +"'You know,' says Billy Fish. 'How should a man tell you who knows +everything? How can daughters of men marry Gods or Devils? It's not +proper.' + +"I remembered something like that in the Bible; but, if after seeing us +as long as they had, they still believed we were Gods, it wasn't for me +to undeceive them. + +"'A God can do anything,' says I. 'If the King is fond of a girl he'll +not let her die.' 'She'll have to,' said Billy Fish. 'There are all +sorts of Gods and Devils in these mountains, and now and again a girl +marries one of them and isn't seen any more. Besides, you two know the +Mark cut in the stone. Only the Gods know that. We thought you were men +till you showed the sign of the Master.' + +"I wished then that we had explained about the loss of the genuine +secrets of a Master Mason at the first go-off; but I said nothing. All +that night there was a blowing of horns in a little dark temple half-way +down the hill, and I heard the girl crying fit to die. One of the +priests told us that she was being prepared to marry the King. + +"'I'll have no nonsense of that kind,' says Dan. 'I don't want to +interfere with your customs, but I'll take my own wife.' 'The girl's a +little bit afraid,' says the priest. 'She thinks she's going to die, and +they are a-heartening of her up down in the temple.' + +"'Hearten her very tender, then,' says Dravot, 'or I'll hearten you with +the butt of a gun so you'll never want to be heartened again.' He licked +his lips, did Dan, and stayed up walking about more than half the night, +thinking of the wife that he was going to get in the morning. I wasn't +any means comfortable, for I knew that dealings with a woman in foreign +parts, though you was a crowned King twenty times over, could not but be +risky. I got up very early in the morning while Dravot was asleep, and +I saw the priests talking together in whispers, and the Chiefs talking +together too, and they looked at me out of the corners of their eyes. + +"'What is up, Fish?' I say to the Bashkai man, who was wrapped up in his +furs and looking splendid to behold. + +"'I can't rightly say,' says he; 'but if you can make the King drop all +this nonsense about marriage, you'll be doing him and me and yourself a +great service.' + +"'That I do believe,' says I. 'But sure, you know, Billy, as well as me, +having fought against and for us, that the King and me are nothing more +than two of the finest men that God Almighty ever made. Nothing more, I +do assure you.' + +"'That may be,' says Billy Fish, 'and yet I should be sorry if it was.' +He sinks his head upon his great fur cloak for a minute and thinks. +'King,' says he, 'be you man or God or Devil, I'll stick by you to-day. +I have twenty of my men with me, and they will follow me. We'll go to +Bashkai until the storm blows over.' + +"A little snow had fallen in the night, and everything was white except +the greasy fat clouds that blew down and down from the north. Dravot +came out with his crown on his head, swinging his arms and stamping his +feet, and looking more pleased than Punch. + +"'For the last time, drop it, Dan,' says I, in a whisper; 'Billy Fish +here says that there will be a row.' + +"'A row among my people!' says Dravot. 'Not much. Peachey, you're a fool +not to get a wife too. Where's the girl?' says he, with a voice as loud +as the braying of a jackass. 'Call up all the Chiefs and priests, and +let the Emperor see if his wife suits him.' + +"There was no need to call any one. They were all there leaning on their +guns and spears round the clearing in the centre of the pine wood. A lot +of priests went down to the little temple to bring up the girl, and the +horns blew fit to wake the dead. Billy Fish saunters round and gets as +close to Daniel as he could, and behind him stood his twenty men with +matchlocks--not a man of them under six feet. I was next to Dravot, and +behind me was twenty men of the regular Army. Up comes the girl, and a +strapping wench she was, covered with silver and turquoises, but white +as death, and looking back every minute at the priests. + +"'She'll do,' said Dan, looking her over. 'What's to be afraid of, lass? +Come and kiss me.' He puts his arm round her. She shuts her eyes, +gives a bit of a squeak, and down goes her face in the side of Dan's +flaming-red beard. + +"'The slut's bitten me!' says he, clapping his hand to his neck, and, +sure enough, his hand was red with blood. Billy Fish and two of his +matchlock men catches hold of Dan by the shoulders and drags him into +the Bashkai lot, while the priests howls in their lingo, 'Neither God +nor Devil, but a man!' I was all taken aback, for a priest cut at me in +front, and the Army behind began firing into the Bashkai men. + +"'God A'mighty!' says Dan, 'what is the meaning o' this?' + +"'Come back! Come away!' says Billy Fish. 'Ruin and Mutiny is the +matter. We'll break for Bashkai if we can.' + +"I tried to give some sort of orders to my men,--the men o' the regular +Army,--but it was no use, so I fired into the brown of 'em with an +English Martini and drilled three beggars in a line. The valley was full +of shouting, howling creatures, and every soul was shrieking, 'Not a God +nor a Devil, but only a man!' The Bashkai troops stuck to Billy Fish all +they were worth, but their matchlocks wasn't half as good as the Kabul +breech-loaders, and four of them dropped. Dan was bellowing like a bull, +for he was very wrathy; and Billy Fish had a hard job to prevent him +running out at the crowd. + +"'We can't stand,' says Billy Fish. 'Make a run for it down the valley! +The whole place is against us.' The matchlock-men ran, and we went down +the valley in spite of Dravot. He was swearing horrible and crying +out that he was a King. The priests rolled great stones on us, and +the regular Army fired hard, and there wasn't more than six men, not +counting Dan, Billy Fish, and Me, that came down to the bottom of the +valley alive. + +"Then they stopped firing, and the horns in the temple blew again. 'Come +away--for Gord's sake come away!' says Billy Fish. 'They'll send runners +out to all the villages before ever we get to Bashkai. I can protect you +there, but I can't do anything now." + +"My own notion is that Dan began to go mad in his head from that hour. +He stared up and down like a stuck pig. Then he was all for walking back +alone and killing the priests with his bare hands; which he could have +done. 'An Emperor am I,' says Daniel, 'and next year I shall be a Knight +of the Queen.' + +"'All right, Dan,' says I; 'but come along now while there's time.' + +"'It's your fault,' says he, 'for not looking after your Army better. +There was mutiny in the midst, and you didn't know--you damned +engine-driving, plate-laying, missionary's-pass-hunting hound!' He sat +upon a rock and called me every foul name he could lay tongue to. I was +too heart-sick to care, though it was all his foolishness that brought +the smash. + +"'I'm sorry, Dan,' says I, 'but there's no accounting for natives. This +business is our Fifty-seven. Maybe we'll make something out of it yet, +when we've got to Bashkai.' + +"'Let's get to Bashkai, then,' says Dan, 'and, by God, when I come +back here again I'll sweep the valley so there isn't a bug in a blanket +left!' + +"We walked all that day, and all that night Dan was stumping up and down +on the snow, chewing his beard and muttering to himself. + +"'There's no hope o' getting clear,' said Billy Fish. 'The priests have +sent runners to the villages to say that you are only men. Why didn't +you stick on as Gods till things was more settled? I'm a dead man,' says +Billy Fish, and he throws himself down on the snow and begins to pray to +his Gods. + +"Next morning we was in a cruel bad country--all up and down, no level +ground at all, and no food, either. The six Bashkai men looked at Billy +Fish hungry-way as if they wanted to ask something, but they never said +a word. At noon we came to the top of a flat mountain all covered with +snow, and when we climbed up into it, behold, there was an Army in +position waiting in the middle! + +"'The runners have been very quick,' says Billy Fish, with a little bit +of a laugh. 'They are waiting for us.' + +"Three or four men began to fire from the enemy's side, and a chance +shot took Daniel in the calf of the leg. That brought him to his senses. +He looks across the snow at the Army, and sees the rifles that we had +brought into the country. + +"'We're done for,' says he. 'They are Englishmen, these people,--and +it's my blasted nonsense that has brought you to this. Get back, Billy +Fish, and take your men away; you've done what you could, and now cut +for it. Carnehan,' says he, 'shake hands with me and go along with +Billy, Maybe they won't kill you. I'll go and meet 'em alone. It's me +that did it! Me, the King!' + +"'Go!' says I. 'Go to Hell, Dan! I'm with you here. Billy Fish, you +clear out, and we two will meet those folk.' + +"'I'm a Chief,' says Billy Fish, quite quiet. 'I stay with you. My men +can go.' + +"The Bashkai fellows didn't wait for a second word, but ran off, and Dan +and Me and Billy Fish walked across to where the drums were drumming and +the horns were horning. It was cold--awful cold. I've got that cold in +the back of my head now. There's a lump of it there." + +The punka-coolies had gone to sleep. Two kerosene lamps were blazing in +the office, and the perspiration poured down my face and splashed on the +blotter as I leaned forward. Carnehan was shivering, and I feared that +his mind might go. I wiped my face, took a fresh grip of the piteously +mangled hands, and said, "What happened after that?" + +The momentary shift of my eyes had broken the clear current. + +"What was you pleased to say?" whined Carnehan. "They took them without +any sound. Not a little whisper all along the snow, not though the King +knocked down the first man that set hand on him--not though old Peachey +fired his last cartridge into the brown of 'em. Not a single solitary +sound did those swines make. They just closed up tight, and I tell you +their furs stunk. There was a man called Billy Fish, a good friend of us +all, and they cut his throat, Sir, then and there, like a pig; and the +King kicks up the bloody snow and says, 'We've had a dashed fine run for +our money. What's coming next?' But Peachey, Peachey Taliaferro, I tell +you, Sir, in confidence as betwixt two friends, he lost his head, Sir. +No, he didn't, neither. The King lost his head, so he did, all along o' +one of those cunning rope bridges. Kindly let me have the paper-cutter, +Sir. It tilted this way. They marched him a mile across that snow to a +rope bridge over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may have seen +such. They prodded him behind like an ox. 'Damn your eyes!' says +the King. 'D' you suppose I can't die like a gentleman?' He turns to +Peachey--Peachey that was crying like a child. 'I've brought you to +this, Peachey,' says he. 'Brought you out of your happy life to be +killed in Kafiristan, where you was late Commander-in-Chief of the +Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me, Peachey.' 'I do,' says Peachey. +'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.' 'Shake hands, Peachey,' says +he. 'I'm going now.' Out he goes, looking neither right nor left, and +when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy dancing ropes, 'Cut you +beggars,' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan fell, turning round and +round and round, twenty thousand miles, for he took half an hour to fall +till he struck the water, and I could see his body caught on a rock with +the gold crown close beside. + +"But do you know what they did to Peachey between two pine-trees? They +crucified him, Sir, as Peachey's hand will show. They used wooden pegs +for his hands and feet; but he didn't die. He hung there and screamed, +and they took him down next day, and said it was a miracle that he +wasn't dead. They took him down--poor old Peachey that hadn't done them +any harm--that hadn't done them any--" + +He rocked to and fro and wept bitterly, wiping his eyes with the back of +his scarred hands and moaning like a child for some ten minutes. + +"They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they said +he was more of a God than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turned +him out on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home in +about a year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he +walked before and said, 'Come along, Peachey. It's a big thing we're +doing.' The mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they tried +to fall on Peachey's head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came +along bent double. He never let go of Dan's hand, and he never let go +of Dan's head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind +him not to come again; and though the crown was pure gold and Peachey +was starving, never would Peachey sell the same. You know Dravot, Sir! +You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now!" + +He fumbled in the mass of rags round his bent waist; brought out a black +horsehair bag embroidered with silver thread; and shook therefrom on to +my table--the dried, withered head of Daniel Dravot! The morning sun, +that had long been paling the lamps, struck the red beard and blind +sunken eyes; struck, too, a heavy circlet of gold studded with raw +turquoises, that Carnehan placed tenderly on the battered temples. + +"You be'old now," said Carnehan, "the Emperor in his 'abit as he +lived--the King of Kafiristan with his crown upon his head. Poor old +Daniel that was a monarch once!" + +I shuddered, for, in spite of defacements manifold, I recognised the +head of the man of Marwar Junction. Carnehan rose to go. I attempted to +stop him. He was not fit to walk abroad. "Let me take away the whisky, +and give me a little money," he gasped. "I was a King once. I'll go to +the Deputy Commissioner and ask to set in the Poorhouse till I get my +health. No, thank you, I can't wait till you get a carriage for me. I've +urgent private affairs--in the south--at Marwar." + +He shambled out of the office and departed in the direction of the +Deputy Commissioner's house. That day at noon I had occasion to go down +the blinding-hot Mall, and I saw a crooked man crawling along the white +dust of the roadside, his hat in his hand, quavering dolorously after +the fashion of street-singers at Home. There was not a soul in sight, +and he was out of all possible earshot of the houses. And he sang +through his nose, turning his head from right to left: + + "The Son of Man goes forth to war, + A golden crown to gain; + His blood-red banner streams afar-- + Who follows in His train?" + +I waited to hear no more, but put the poor wretch into my carriage and +drove him off to the nearest missionary for eventual transfer to the +Asylum. He repeated the hymn twice while he was with me, whom he did not +in the least recognise, and I left him singing it to the missionary. + +Two days later I inquired after his welfare of the Superintendent of the +Asylum. + +"He was admitted suffering from sunstroke. He died early yesterday +morning," said the Superintendent. "Is it true that he was half an hour +bareheaded in the sun at midday?" + +"Yes," said I; "but do you happen to know if he had anything upon him by +any chance when he died?" + +"Not to my knowledge," said the Superintendent. + +And there the matter rests. + + + + +TAJIMA, By Miss Mitford + + +Once upon a time, a certain ronin, Tajima Shume by name, an able and +well-read man, being on his travels to see the world, went up to Kiyoto +by the Tokaido. [The road of the Eastern Sea, the famous highroad +leading from Kiyoto to Yedo. The name is also used to indicate the +provinces through which it runs.] One day, in the neighbourhood of +Nagoya, in the province of Owari, he fell in with a wandering priest, +with whom he entered into conversation. Finding that they were bound for +the same place, they agreed to travel together, beguiling their weary +way by pleasant talk on divers matters; and so by degrees, as they +became more intimate, they began to speak without restraint about their +private affairs; and the priest, trusting thoroughly in the honour of +his companion, told him the object of his journey. + +"For some time past," said he, "I have nourished a wish that has +engrossed all my thoughts; for I am bent on setting up a molten image +in honour of Buddha; with this object I have wandered through various +provinces collecting alms, and (who knows by what weary toil?) we have +succeeded in amassing two hundred ounces of silver--enough, I trust, to +erect a handsome bronze figure." + +What says the proverb? "He who bears a jewel in his bosom bears poison." +Hardly had the ronin heard these words of the priest than an evil heart +arose within him, and he thought to himself, "Man's life, from the womb +to the grave, is made up of good and of ill luck. Here am I, nearly +forty years old, a wanderer, without a calling, or even a hope of +advancement in the world. To be sure, it seems a shame; yet if I could +steal the money this priest is boasting about, I could live at ease for +the rest of my days;" and so he began casting about how best he might +compass his purpose. But the priest, far from guessing the drift of his +comrade's thoughts, journeyed cheerfully on till they reached the +town of Kuana. Here there is an arm of the sea, which is crossed in +ferry-boats, that start as soon as some twenty or thirty passengers +are gathered together; and in one of these boats the two travellers +embarked. About half-way across, the priest was taken with a sudden +necessity to go to the side of the boat; and the ronin, following him, +tripped him up while no one was looking, and flung him into the sea. +When the boatmen and passengers heard the splash, and saw the priest +struggling in the water, they were afraid, and made every effort to +save him; but the wind was fair, and the boat running swiftly under +the bellying sails; so they were soon a few hundred yards off from the +drowning man, who sank before the boat could be turned to rescue him. + +When he saw this, the ronin feigned the utmost grief and dismay, and +said to his fellow-passengers, "This priest, whom we have just lost, was +my cousin; he was going to Kiyoto, to visit the shrine of his patron; +and as I happened to have business there as well, we settled to travel +together. Now, alas! by this misfortune, my cousin is dead, and I am +left alone." + +He spoke so feelingly, and wept so freely, that the passengers believed +his story, and pitied and tried to comfort him. Then the ronin said to +the boatmen: + +"We ought, by rights, to report this matter to the authorities; but as I +am pressed for time, and the business might bring trouble on yourselves +as well, perhaps we had better hush it up for the present; I will at +once go on to Kiyoto and tell my cousin's patron, besides writing home +about it. What think you, gentlemen?" added he, turning to the other +travellers. + +They, of course, were only too glad to avoid any hindrance to their +onward journey, and all with one voice agreed to what the ronin had +proposed; and so the matter was settled. When, at length, they reached +the shore, they left the boat, and every man went his way; but the +ronin, overjoyed in his heart, took the wandering priest's luggage, and, +putting it with his own, pursued his journey to Kiyoto. + +On reaching the capital, the ronin changed his name from Shume to +Tokubei, and, giving up his position as a samurai, turned merchant, and +traded with the dead man's money. Fortune favouring his speculations, +he began to amass great wealth, and lived at his ease, denying himself +nothing; and in course of time he married a wife, who bore him a child. + +Thus the days and months wore on, till one fine summer's night, some +three years after the priest's death, Tokubei stepped out on the veranda +of his house to enjoy the cool air and the beauty of the moonlight. +Feeling dull and lonely, he began musing over all kinds of things, when +on a sudden the deed of murder and theft, done so long ago, vividly +recurred to his memory, and he thought to himself, "Here am I, grown +rich and fat on the money I wantonly stole. Since then, all has gone +well with me; yet, had I not been poor, I had never turned assassin nor +thief. Woe betide me! what a pity it was!" and as he was revolving the +matter in his mind, a feeling of remorse came over him, in spite of all +he could do. While his conscience thus smote him, he suddenly, to his +utter amazement, beheld the faint outline of a man standing near a +fir-tree in the garden; on looking more attentively, he perceived that +the man's whole body was thin and worn, and the eyes sunken and dim; +and in that poor ghost that was before him he recognised the very priest +whom he had thrown into the sea at Kuana. Chilled with horror, he looked +again, and saw that the priest was smiling in scorn. He would have fled +into the house, but the ghost stretched forth its withered arm, and, +clutching the back of his neck, scowled at him with a vindictive glare +and a hideous ghastliness of mien so unspeakably awful that any ordinary +man would have swooned with fear. But Tokubei, tradesman though he was, +had once been a soldier, and was not easily matched for daring; so he +shook off the ghost, and, leaping into the room for his dirk, laid about +him boldly enough; but, strike as he would, the spirit, fading into the +air, eluded his blows, and suddenly reappeared only to vanish again; +and from that time forth Tokubei knew no rest, and was haunted night and +day. + +At length, undone by such ceaseless vexation, Tokubei fell ill, and +kept muttering, "Oh, misery! misery! the wandering priest is coming to +torture me!" Hearing his moans and the disturbance he made, the +people in the house fancied he was mad, and called in a physician, who +prescribed for him. But neither pill nor potion could cure Tokubei, +whose strange frenzy soon became the talk of the whole neighbourhood. + +Now it chanced that the story reached the ears of a certain wandering +priest who lodged in the next street. When he heard the particulars, +this priest gravely shook his head as though he knew all about it, +and sent a friend to Tokubei's house to say that a wandering priest, +dwelling hard by, had heard of his illness, and, were it never so +grievous, would undertake to heal it by means of his prayers; and +Tokubei's wife, driven half wild by her husband's sickness, lost not +a moment in sending for the priest and taking him into the sick man's +room. + +But no sooner did Tokubei see the priest than he yelled out, "Help! +help! Here is the wandering priest come to torment me again. Forgive! +forgive!" and hiding his head under the coverlet, he lay quivering all +over. Then the priest turned all present out of the room, put his mouth +to the affrighted man's ear, and whispered: + +"Three years ago, at the Kuana ferry, you flung me into the water; and +well you remember it." + +But Tokubei was speechless, and could only quake with fear. + +"Happily," continued the priest, "I had learned to swim and to dive as +a boy; so I reached the shore, and, after wandering through many +provinces, succeeded in setting up a bronze figure to Buddha, thus +fulfilling the wish of my heart. On my journey homeward, I took a +lodging in the next street, and there heard of your marvellous ailment. +Thinking I could divine its cause, I came to see you, and am glad to +find I was not mistaken. You have done a hateful deed; but am I not a +priest, and have I not forsaken the things of this world, and would it +not ill become me to bear malice? Repent, therefore, and abandon your +evil ways. To see you do so I should esteem the height of happiness. Be +of good cheer, now, and look me in the face, and you will see that I am +really a living man, and no vengeful goblin come to torment you." + +Seeing he had no ghost to deal with, and overwhelmed by the priest's +kindness, Tokubei burst into tears, and answered, "Indeed, indeed, I +don't know what to say. In a fit of madness I was tempted to kill and +rob you. Fortune befriended me ever after; but the richer I grew, the +more keenly I felt how wicked I had been, and the more I foresaw that my +victim's vengeance would some day overtake me. Haunted by this thought, +I lost my nerve, till one night I beheld your spirit, and from that time +fell ill. But how you managed to escape, and are still alive, is more +than I can understand." + +"A guilty man," said the priest, with a smile, "shudders at the rustling +of the wind or the chattering of a stork's beak; a murderer's conscience +preys upon his mind till he sees what is not. Poverty drives a man to +crimes which he repents of in his wealth. How true is the doctrine of +Moshi [Mencius], that the heart of man, pure by nature, is corrupted by +circumstances!" + +Thus he held forth; and Tokubei, who had long since repented of his +crime, implored forgiveness, and gave him a large sum of money, saying, +"Half of this is the amount I stole from you three years since; the +other half I entreat you to accept as interest, or as a gift." + +The priest at first refused the money; but Tokubei insisted on his +accepting it, and did all he could to detain him, but in vain; for the +priest went on his way, and bestowed the money on the poor and needy. As +for Tokubei himself, he soon shook off his disorder, and thenceforward +lived at peace with all men, revered both at home and abroad, and ever +intent on good and charitable deeds. + + + + +A CHINESE GIRL GRADUATE, By R. K. Douglas + + +Who among the three hundred million sons of Han does not know the +saying: + + There's Paradise above, 't is true; + But here below we've Hang and Soo? + [Hangchow and Soochow] + +And though no one will deny the beauty of those far-famed cities, they +cannot compare in grandeur of situation and boldness of features with +many of the towns of the providence of the "Four Streams." Foremost +among the favoured spots of this part of the empire is Mienchu, which, +as its name implies, is celebrated for the silky bamboos which grow +in its immediate neighbourhood. These form, however, only one of the +features of its loveliness. Situated at the foot of a range of mountains +which rise through all the gradations from rich and abundant verdure +to the region of eternal snow, it lies embosomed in groves of beech, +cypress, and bamboo, through the leafy screens of which rise the +upturned yellow roofs of the temples and official residences, which dot +the landscape like golden islands in an emerald sea; while beyond the +wall hurries, between high and rugged banks, the tributary of the Fu +River, which bears to the mighty waters of the Yangtsze-Kiang the goods +and passengers which seek an outlet to the eastern provinces. + +The streets within the walls of the city are scenes of life and bustle, +while in the suburbs stand the residences of those who can afford to +live in peace and quiet, undisturbed by the clamour of the Les and +Changs [i.e., the people. Le and Chang are the two commonest names in +China.] of the town. There, in a situation which the Son of Heaven might +envy, stands the official residence of Colonel Wen. Outwardly it has +all the appearance of a grandee's palace, and within the massive +boundary-walls which surround it, the courtyards, halls, grounds, +summer-houses, and pavilions are not to be exceeded in grandeur and +beauty. The office which had fallen to the lot of Colonel Wen was one +of the most sought after in the province, and commonly only fell to +officers of distinction. Though not without fame in the field, Colonel +Wen's main claim to honour lay in the high degrees he had taken in the +examinations. His literary acquirements gained him friends among +the civil officers of the district, and the position he occupied was +altogether one of exceptional dignity. + +Unfortunately, his first wife had died, leaving only a daughter to +keep her memory alive; but at the time when our story opens, his second +spouse, more kind than his first, had presented him with a much-desired +son. The mother of this boy was one of those bright, pretty, gay +creatures who commonly gain the affections of men much older than +themselves. She sang in the most faultless falsetto, she played the +guitar with taste and expression, and she danced with grace and agility. +What wonder, then, that when the colonel returned from his tours of +inspections and parades, weary with travel and dust, he found relief and +relaxation in the joyous company of Hyacinth! And was she not also the +mother of his son? Next to herself, there can be no question that this +young gentleman held the chief place in the colonel's affections; while +poor Jasmine, his daughter by his first venture, was left very much to +her own resources. No one troubled themselves about what she did, and +she was allowed, as she grew up, to follow her own pursuits and to +give rein to her fancies without let or hindrance. From her earliest +childhood one of her lonely amusements had been to dress as a boy, and +so unchecked had the habit become that she gradually drifted into the +character which she had chosen to assume. She even persuaded her father +to let her go to the neighbouring boys' school. Her mother had died +before the colonel had been posted to Mienchu, and among the people of +that place, who had always seen her in boy's attire, she was regarded as +an adopted son of her father. Hyacinth was only too glad to get her out +of the way as much as possible, and so encouraged the idea of allowing +her to learn to read and write in the company of their neighbours' +urchins. + +Being bright and clever, she soon gained an intellectual lead among the +boys, and her uncommon beauty, coupled with the magnetism belonging +to her sex, secured for her a popularity which almost amounted to +adoration. She was tall for her age, as are most young daughters of Han; +and her perfectly oval face, almond-shaped eyes, willow-leaf eyebrows, +small, well-shaped mouth, brilliantly white teeth, and raven-black hair, +completed a face and figure which would have been noticeable anywhere. +By the boys she was worshipped, and no undertaking was too difficult or +too troublesome if it was to give pleasure to Tsunk'ing, or the "Young +Noble," as she was called; for to have answered to the name of Jasmine +would have been to proclaim her sex at once. Even the grim old +master smiled at her through his horn spectacles as she entered the +school-house of a morning, and any graceful turn in her poetry or +scholarly diction in her prose was sure to win for her his unsparing +praise. Many an evening he invited the "young noble" to his house to +read over chapters from Confucius and the poems of Le Taipoh; and years +afterward, when he died, among his most cherished papers were found +odes signed by Tsunk'ing, in which there was a good deal about bending +willows, light, flickering bamboos, horned moons, wild geese, the sound +of a flute on a rainy day, and the pleasures of wine, in strict accord +with the models set forth in the "Aids to Poetry-making" which are +common in the land. + +If it had not been for the indifference with which she was treated in +her home, the favour with which she was regarded abroad would have +been most prejudicial to Jasmine; but any conceit which might have been +engendered in the school-house was speedily counteracted when she got +within the portals of the colonel's domain. Coming into the presence of +her father and his wife, with all the incense of kindness, affection, +and, it must be confessed, flattery, with which she was surrounded by +her school-fellows, fresh about her, was like stepping into a cold bath. +Wholesome and invigorating the change may have been, but it was very +unpleasant, and Jasmine often longed to be alone to give vent to her +feelings in tears. + +One deep consolation she had, however: she was a devoted student, and in +the society of her books she forgot the callousness of her parents, and, +living in imagination in the bygone annals of the empire, she was able +to take part, as it were, in the great deeds which mark the past history +of the state, and to enjoy the converse and society of the sages and +poets of antiquity. When the time came that she had gained all the +knowledge which the old schoolmaster could impart to her, she left the +school, and formed a reading-party with two youths of her own age. +These lads, by name Wei and Tu, had been her school-fellows, and were +delighted at obtaining her promise to join them in their studies. So +industriously were these pursued that the three friends succeeded in +taking their B.A. degree at the next examination, and, encouraged by +this success, determined to venture on a struggle for a still higher +distinction. + +Though at one in their affection for Jasmine, Tu and Wei were unlike +in everything else, which probably accounted for the friendship which +existed between them. Wei was the more clever of the two. He wrote +poetry with ease and fluency, and his essays were marked by correctness +of style and aptness of quotation. But there was a want of strength in +his character. He was exceedingly vain, and was always seeking to excite +admiration among his companions. This unhappy failing made him very +susceptible of adverse criticism, and at the same time extremely jealous +of any one who might happen to excel him in any way. Tu, on the other +hand, though not so intellectually favoured, had a rough kind of +originality, which always secured for his exercises a respectful +attention, and made him at all times an agreeable companion. Having +no exaggerated ideas of his capabilities, he never strove to appear +otherwise than he was, and being quite independent of the opinions of +others, he was always natural. Thus he was one who was sought out by +his friends, and was best esteemed by those whose esteem was best worth +having. In outward appearance the youths were as different as their +characters were diverse. Wei was decidedly good-looking, but of a kind +of beauty which suggested neither rest nor sincerity; while in Tu's +features, though there was less grace, the want was fully compensated +for by the strength and honest firmness of his countenance. + +For both these young men Jasmine had a liking, but there was no question +as to which she preferred. As she herself said, "Wei is pleasant enough +as a companion, but if I had to look to one of them for an act of true +friendship--or as a lover," she mentally added--"I should turn at once +to Tu." It was one of her amusements to compare the young men in her +mind, and one day when so occupied Tu suddenly looked up from his book +and said to her: + +"What a pity it is that the gods have made us both men! If _I_ were a +woman, the object of my heart would be to be your wife, and if _you_ +were a woman, there is nothing I should like better than to be your +husband." + +Jasmine blushed up to the roots of her hair at having her own thoughts +thus capped, as it were; but before she could answer, Wei broke in with: + +"What nonsense you talk! And why, I should like to know, should you be +the only one the 'young noble' might choose, supposing he belonged to +the other sex?" + +"You are both talking nonsense," said Jasmine, who had had time to +recover her composure, "and remind me of my two old childless aunts," +she added, laughing, "who are always quarrelling about the names they +would have given their children if the goddess Kwanyin had granted them +any half a century ago. As a matter of act, we are three friends reading +for our M.A. degrees, neither more nor less. And I will trouble you, +my elder brother," she added, turning to Tu, "to explain to me what the +poet means by the expression 'tuneful Tung' in the line: + + 'The greedy flames devour the tuneful Tung.'" + +A learned disquisition by Tu on the celebrated musician who recognised +the sonorous qualities of a piece of Tung timber burning in the kitchen +fire effectually diverted the conversation from the inconvenient +direction it had taken, and shortly afterward Jasmine took her leave. + +Haunted by the thought of what had passed, she wandered on to the +veranda of her archery pavilion, and while gazing half unconsciously +heavenward her eyes were attracted by a hawk which flew past and +alighted on a tree beyond the boundary-wall, and in front of the study +she had lately left. In a restless and thoughtless mood, she took up her +bow and arrow, and with unerring aim compassed the death of her victim. +No sooner, however, had the hawk fallen, carrying the arrow with it, +than she remembered that her name was inscribed on the shaft, and +fearing lest it should be found by either Wei or Tu, she hurried round +in the hope of recovering it. But she was too late. On approaching +the study, she found Tu in the garden in front, examining the bird and +arrow. + +"Look," he said, as he saw her coming, "what a good shot some one has +made! and whoever it is, he has a due appreciation of his own skill. +Listen to these lines which are scraped on the arrow: + + 'Do not lightly draw your bow; + But if you must, bring down your foe.'" + +Jasmine was glad enough to find that he had not discovered her name, +and eagerly exchanged banter with him on the conceit of the owner of the +arrow. But before she could recover it, Wei, who had heard the talking +and laughter, joined them, and took the arrow out of Tu's hand to +examine it. Just at that moment a messenger came to summon Tu to his +father's presence, and he had no sooner gone than Wei exclaimed: + +"But see, here is the name of the mysterious owner of the arrow, and, as +I live, it is a girl's name--Jasmine! Who, among the goddesses of heaven +can Jasmine be?" + +"Oh, I will take the arrow then," said Jasmine. "It must belong to my +sister. That is her name." + +"I did not know that you had a sister," said Wei. + +"Oh yes, I have," answered Jasmine, quite forgetful of the celebrated +dictum of Confucius: "Be truthful." "She is just one year younger than I +am," she added, thinking it well to be circumstantial. + +"Why have you never mentioned her?" asked Wei, with animation. "What is +she like? Is she anything like you?" + +"She is the very image of me." + +"What! In height and features and ways?" + +"The very image, so that people have often said that if we changed +clothes each might pass for the other." + +"What a good-looking girl she must be!" said Wei, laughing. "But, +seriously, I have not, as you know, yet set up a household; and if your +sister has not received bridal presents, I would beg to be allowed to +invite her to enter my lowly habitation. What does my elder brother say +to my proposal?" + +"I don't know what my sister would feel about it," said Jasmine. "I +would never answer for a girl, if I lived to be as old as the God of +Longevity." + +"Will you find out for me?" + +"Certainly I will. But remember, not a word must be mentioned on the +subject to my father, or, in fact, to anybody, until I give you leave." + +"So long as my elder brother will undertake for me, I will promise +anything," said the delighted Wei. "I already feel as though I were +nine-tenths of the way to the abode of the phenix. Take this box of +precious ointment to your sister as an earnest of my intentions, and I +will keep the arrow as a token from her until she demands its return. I +feel inclined to express myself in verse. May I?" + +"By all means," said Jasmine, laughing. + +Thus encouraged, Wei improvised as follows: + + "'T was sung of old that Lofu had no mate, + Though Che was willing; for no word was said. + At last an arrow like a herald came, + And now an honoured brother lends his aid." + +"Excellent," said Jasmine, laughing. "With such a poetic gift as you +possess, you certainly deserve a better fate than befell Lofu." + +From this day the idea of marrying Jasmine's sister possessed the +soul of Wei. But not a word did he say to Tu on the matter, for he was +conscious that, as Tu was the first to pick up the arrow through which +he had become acquainted with the existence of Jasmine's sister, his +friend might possibly lay a claim to her hand. To Jasmine also the +subject was a most absorbing one. She felt that she was becoming most +unpleasantly involved in a risky matter, and that, if the time should +ever come when she should have to make an explanation, she might in +honour be compelled to marry Wei--a prospect which filled her with +dismay. The turn events had taken had made her analyse her feelings more +than she had ever done before, and the process made her doubly conscious +of the depth of her affection for Tu. "A horse," she said to herself, +"cannot carry two saddles, and a woman cannot marry more than one man." +Wise as this saw was, it did not help her out of her difficulty, and +she turned to the chapter of accidents, and determined to trust to time, +that old disposer of events, to settle the matter. But Wei was inclined +to be impatient, and Jasmine was obliged to resort to more of those +departures from truth which circumstances had forced upon this generally +very upright young lady. + +"I have consulted my father on the subject," she said to the expectant +Wei, "and he insists on your waiting until the autumn examination is +over. He has every confidence that you will then take your M.A. degree, +and your marriage will, he hopes, put the coping-stone on your happiness +and honour." + +"That is all very well," said Wei; "but autumn is a long time hence, and +how do I know that your sister may not change her mind?" + +"Has not your younger brother undertaken to look after your interests, +and cannot you trust him to do his best on your behalf?" + +"I can trust my elder brother with anything in the world. It is your +sister that I am afraid of," said Wei. "But since you will undertake for +her--" + +"No, no," said Jasmine, laughing, "I did not say that I would undertake +for her. A man who answers for a woman deserves to have 'fool' written +on his forehead." + +"Well, at all events, I will be content to leave the matter in your +hands," said Wei. + +At last the time of the autumn examination drew near, and Tu and Wei +made preparations for their departure to the provincial capital. They +were both bitterly disappointed when Jasmine announced that she was not +going up that time. This determination was the result of a conference +with her father. She had pointed out to the colonel that if she passed +and took her M.A. degree she might be called upon to take office at any +time, and that then she would be compelled to confess her sex; and as +she was by no means disposed to give up the freedom which her doublet +and hose conferred upon her, it was agreed between them that she should +plead illness and not go up. Her two friends, therefore, went alone, and +brilliant success attended their venture. They both passed with honours, +and returned to Mienchu to receive the congratulations of their friends. +Jasmine's delight was very genuine, more especially as regarded Tu, and +the first evening was spent by the three students in joyous converse and +in confident anticipation of the future. As Jasmine took leave of the +two new M.A.'s, Wei followed her to the outer door and whispered at +parting: + +"I am coming to-morrow to make my formal proposal to your sister." + +Jasmine had no time to answer, but went home full of anxious and +disturbed thoughts, which were destined to take a more tragic turn than +she had ever anticipated even in her most gloomy moments. The same cruel +fate had also decreed that Wei's proposal was to be suspended, like +Buddha, between heaven and earth. The blow fell upon him when he was +attiring himself in the garments of his new degree, in preparation for +his visit. He was in the act of tying his sash and appending it to +his purse and trinkets, when Jasmine burst into the young men's study, +looking deadly pale and bearing traces of acute mental distress on her +usually bright and joyous countenance. + +"What is the matter?" cried Tu, with almost as much agitation as was +shown by Jasmine. "Tell me what has happened." + +"Oh, my father, my poor father!" sobbed Jasmine. + +"What is the matter with your father? He is not dead, is he?" cried the +young men in one breath. + +"No, it is not so bad as that," said Jasmine, "but a great and bitter +misfortune has come upon us. As you know, some time ago my father had +a quarrel with the military intendant, and that horrid man has, out of +spite, brought charges against him for which he was carried off this +morning to prison." + +The statement of her misery and the shame involved in it completely +unnerved poor Jasmine, who, true to her inner sex, burst into tears +and rocked herself to and fro in her grief. Tu and Wei, on their knees +before her, tried to pour in words of consolation. With a lack of reason +which might be excused under the circumstances, they vowed that her +father was innocent before they knew the nature of the charges against +him, and they pledged themselves to rest neither day nor night until +they had rescued him from his difficulty. When, under the influence of +their genuine sympathy, Jasmine recovered some composure, Tu begged her +to tell him of what her father was accused. + +"The villain," said Jasmine, through her tears, "has dared to say +that my father has made use of government taxes, has taken bribes +for recommending men for promotion, has appropriated the soldiers' +ration-money, and has been in league with highwaymen." + +"Is it possible?" said Tu, who was rather staggered by this long +catalogue of crimes. "I should not have believed that any one could have +ventured to have charged your honoured father with such things, least of +all the intendant, who is notoriously possessed of an itching palm. But +I tell you what we can do at once. Wei and I, being M.A.'s, have a right +to call on the prefect, and it will be a real pleasure to us to exercise +our new privilege for the first time in your service. We will urge him +to inquire into the matter, and I cannot doubt that he will at once +quash the proceedings." + +Unhappily, Tu's hopes were not realised. The prefect was very civil, +but pointed out that, since a higher court had ordered the arrest of +the colonel, he was powerless to interfere in the matter. Many were +the consultations held by the three friends, and much personal relief +Jasmine got from the support and sympathy of the young men. One hope +yet remained to her: Tu and Wei were about to go to Peking for their +doctor's degrees, and if they passed they might be able to bring such +influence to bear as would secure the release of her father. + +"Let not the 'young noble' distress himself overmuch," said Wei to her, +with some importance. "This affair will be engraven on our hearts and +minds, and if we take our degrees we will use our utmost exertions to +wipe away the injustice which has been done your father." + +"Unhappily," said the more practical Tu, "it is too plain that the +examining magistrates are all in league to ruin him. But let our elder +brother remain quietly at home, doing all he can to collect evidence +in the colonel's favour, while we will do our best at the capital. If +things turn out well with us there, our elder brother had better follow +at once to assist us with his advice." + +Before the friends parted, Wei, whose own affairs were always his first +consideration, took an opportunity of whispering to Jasmine, "Don't +forget your honoured sister's promise, I beseech you. Whether we succeed +or not, I shall ask for her in marriage on my return." + +"Under present circumstances, we must no longer consider the +engagement," said Jasmine, shocked at his introducing the subject at +such a moment, "and the best thing that you can do is to forget all +about it." + +The moment for the departure of the young men had come, and they had no +time to say more. With bitter tears, the two youths took leave of the +weeping Jasmine, who, as their carts disappeared in the distance, felt +for the first time what it was to be alone in misery. She saw little of +her stepmother in those days. That poor lady made herself so ill with +unrestrained grief that she was quite incapable of rendering either help +or advice. Fortunately the officials showed no disposition to proceed +with the indictment, and by the judicious use of the money at her +command Jasmine induced the prison authorities to make her father's +confinement as little irksome as possible. She was allowed to see him at +almost any time, and on one occasion, when he was enjoying her presence +as in his prosperous days he had never expected to do, he remarked: + +"Since the officials are not proceeding with the business, I think my +best plan will be to send a petition to Peking asking the Board of War +to acquit me. But my difficulty is that I have no one whom I can send to +look after the business." + +"Let _me_ go," said Jasmine. "When Tu and Wei were leaving, they begged +me to follow them to consult as to the best means of helping you, and +with them to depend on I have nothing to fear." + +"I quite believe that you are as capable of managing the matter as +anybody," said her father, admiringly; "but Peking is a long way off, +and I cannot bear to think of the things which might happen to you on +the road." + +"From all time," answered Jasmine, "it has been considered the duty of +a daughter to risk anything in the service of her father; and though the +way is long, I shall have weapons to defend myself with against injury, +and a clear conscience with which to answer any interrogatories which +may be put to me. Besides, I will take our messenger, 'The Dragon,' and +his wife with me. I will make her dress as a man--what fun it will be +to see Mrs. Dragon's portly form in trousers, and gabardine! When that +transformation is made, we shall be a party of three men. So, you see, +she and I will have a man to protect us, and I shall have a woman to +wait upon me; and if such a gallant company cannot travel from this to +Peking in safety, I'll forswear boots and trousers and will retire into +the harem for ever." + +"Well," said her father, laughing, "if you can arrange in that way, go +by all means, and the sooner you start the sooner I hope you will be +back." + +Delighted at having gained the approval of her father to her scheme, +Jasmine quickly made the arrangements for her journey. On the morning +of the day on which she was to start, the results of the doctors' +examination at Peking reached Mienchu, and, to Jasmine's infinite +delight, she found the names of Tu and Wei among the successful +candidates. Armed with this good news, she hurried to the prison. All +difficulties seemed to disappear like mist before the sun as she thought +of the powerful advocates she now had at Peking. + +"Tu and Wei have passed," she said, as she rushed into her father's +presence, "and now the end of our troubles is approaching." + + + +With impatient hope Jasmine took leave of her father, and started on +her eventful journey. As evening drew on she entered the suburbs of +Ch'engtu, the provincial capital, and sent "The Dragon" on to find +a suitable inn for the couple of nights which she knew she would be +compelled to spend in the city. "The Dragon" was successful in his +search, and conducted Jasmine and his wife to a comfortable hostelry in +one of the busiest parts of the town. Having refreshed herself with an +excellent dinner, Jasmine was glad to rest from the fatigues and heat +of the day in the cool courtyard into which her room opened. Fortune and +builders had so arranged that a neighbouring house, towering above the +inn, overlooked this restful spot, and one of the higher windows faced +exactly the position which Jasmine had taken up. Such a fact would not, +in ordinary circumstances, have troubled her in the least; but she +had not been sitting long before she began to feel an extraordinary +attraction toward the window. She did her best to look the other way, +but she was often unconsciously impelled to glance up at the lattice. +Once she fancied she saw the curtain move. Determined to verify +her impression, she suddenly raised her eyes, after a prolonged +contemplation of the pavement, and caught a momentary sight of a girl's +face, which as instantly disappeared, but not before Jasmine had been +able to recognise that it was one of exceptional beauty. + +"Now, if I were a young man," said she to herself, "I ought to feel my +heart beat at the sight of such loveliness, and it would be my bounden +duty to swear that I would win the owner of it in the teeth of dragons. +But as my manhood goes no deeper than my outer garments, I can afford to +sit here with a quiet pulse and a whole skin." + +The next day Jasmine was busily engaged in interviewing some officials +in the interest of her father, and only reached the shelter of her inn +toward evening. As she passed through the courtyard she instinctively +looked up at the window, and again caught a glimpse of the vision +of beauty which she had seen the evening before. "If she only knew," +thought Jasmine, "that I was such a one as herself, she would be less +anxious to see me, and more likely to avoid me." + +While amusing herself at the thought of the fair watcher, the inn +door opened, and a waiting-woman entered carrying a small box. As she +approached Jasmine she bowed low, and with bated breath thus addressed +her: + +"May every happiness be yours, sir. My young lady, Miss King, whose +humble dwelling is the adjoining house, seeing that you are living +in solitude, has sent me with this fruit and tea as a complimentary +offering." + +So saying, she presented to Jasmine the box, which contained pears and a +packet of scented tea. + +"To what am I indebted for this honour?" replied Jasmine; "I can +claim no relationship with your lady, nor have I the honour of her +acquaintance." + +"My young lady says," answered the waiting-woman, "that, among the +myriads who come to this inn and the thousands who go from it, she has +seen no one to equal your Excellency in form and feature. At sight of +you she was confident that you came from a lofty and noble family, and +having learned from your attendants that you are the son of a colonel, +she ventured to send you these trifles to supplement the needy fare of +this rude inn." + +"Tell me something about your young lady," said Jasmine, in a moment of +idle curiosity. + +"My young lady," said the woman, "is the daughter of Mr. King, who was +a vice-president of a lower court. Her father and mother having both +visited the 'Yellow Springs' [Hades], she is now living with an aunt, +who has been blessed by the God of Wealth, and whose main object in life +is to find a husband whom her niece may be willing to marry. The +young gentleman, my young lady's cousin, is one of the richest men in +Ch'engtu. All the larger inns belong to him, and his profits are as +boundless as the four seas. He is as anxious as his mother to find a +suitable match for the young lady, and has promised that so soon as she +can make a choice he will arrange the wedding." + +"I should have thought," said Jasmine, "that, being the owner of so much +wealth and beauty, the young lady would have been besieged by suitors +from all parts of the empire." + +"So she is," said the woman, "and from her window yonder she espies +them, for they all put up at this inn. Hitherto she has made fun of them +all, and describes their appearance and habits in the most amusing way. +'See this one,' says she, 'with his bachelor cap on and his new official +clothes and awkward gait, looking for all the world like a barn-door +fowl dressed up as a stork; or that one, with his round shoulders, +monkey-face, and crooked legs;' and so she tells them off." + +"What does she say of me, I wonder?" said Jasmine, amused. + +"Of your Excellency she says that her comparisons fail her, and that she +can only hope that the Fates who guided your jewelled chariot hitherward +will not tantalise her by an empty vision, but will bind your ankles to +hers with the red matrimonial cords." + +"How can I hope for such happiness?" said Jasmine, smiling. "But please +to tell your young lady that, being only a guest at this inn, I have +nothing worthy of her acceptance to offer in return for her bounteous +gifts, and that I can only assure her of my boundless gratitude." + +With many bows, and with reiterated wishes for Jasmine's happiness and +endless longevity, the woman took her leave. + +"Truly this young lady has formed a most perverted attachment," said +Jasmine to herself. "She reminds me of the man in the fairy tale who +fell in love with a shadow, and, so far as I can see, she is not likely +to get any more satisfaction out of it than he did." So saying, she took +up a pencil and scribbled the following lines on a scrap of paper: + + "With thoughts as ardent as a quenchless thirst, + She sends me fragrant and most luscious fruit; + Without a blush she seeks a phenix guest [a bachelor] + Who dwells alone like case-enveloped lute." + +After this mental effort Jasmine went to bed. Nor had her interview with +the waiting-woman made a sufficient impression on her mind to interfere +in any way with her sleep. She was surprised, however, on coming into +her sitting-room in the morning, to meet the same messenger, who, laden +with a dish of hot eggs and a brew of tea, begged Jasmine to "deign to +look down upon her offerings." + +"Many thanks," said Jasmine, "for your kind attention." + +"You are putting the saddle on the wrong horse," replied the woman. "In +bringing you these I am but obeying the orders of Miss King, who herself +made the tea of leaves from Pu-erh in Yunnan, and who with her own fair +hands shelled the eggs." + +"Your young lady," answered Jasmine, "is as bountiful as she is kind. +What return can I make her for her kindness to a stranger? Stay," she +said, as the thought crossed her mind that the verses she had written +the night before might prove a wholesome tonic for this effusive young +lady, "I have a few verses which I will venture to ask her to accept." +So saying, she took a piece of peach-blossom paper, on which she +carefully copied the quatrain and handed it to the woman. "May I trouble +you," said she, "to take this to your mistress?" + +"If," said Jasmine to herself as the woman took her departure, "Miss +King is able to penetrate the meaning of my verses, she won't like them. +Without saying so in so many words, I have told her with sufficient +plainness that I will have nothing to say to her. But stupidity is a +shield sent by Providence to protect the greater part of mankind from +many evils; so perhaps she will escape." + +It certainly in this case served to shield Miss King from Jasmine's +shafts. She was delighted at receiving the verses, and at once sat down +to compose a quatrain to match Jasmine's in reply. With infinite labour +she elaborated the following: + + "Sung Yuh on th' eastern wall sat deep in thought, + And longed with P'e to pluck the fragrant fruit. + If all the well-known tunes be newly set, + What use to take again the half-burnt lute?" + +Having copied these on a piece of silk-woven paper, she sent them to +Jasmine by her faithful attendant. On looking over the paper, Jasmine +said, smiling, "What a clever young lady your mistress must be! These +lines, though somewhat inconsequential, are incomparable." + +But, though Jasmine was partly inclined to treat the matter as a joke, +she saw that there was a serious side to the affair, more especially as +the colours under which she was sailing were so undeniably false. She +knew well that for Sung Yuh should be read Miss King, and for P'e +her own name; and she determined, therefore, to put an end to the +philandering of Miss King, which, in her present state of mind, was +doubly annoying to her. + +"I am deeply indebted to your young lady," she said, and then, being +determined to make a plunge into the morass of untruthfulness, for a +good end as she believed, added, "and, if I had love at my disposal, I +should possibly venture to make advances toward the feathery peach [a +nuptial emblem]; but let me confess to you that I have already taken +to myself a wife. Had I the felicity of meeting Miss King before I +committed myself in another direction, I might perhaps have been a +happier man. But, after all, if this were so, my position is no worse +than that of most other married men, for I never met one who was not +occasionally inclined to cry, like the boys at 'toss cash,' 'Hark back +and try again.'" + +"This will be sad news for my lady, for she has set her heart upon you +ever since you first came to the inn; and when young misses take that +sort of fancy and lose the objects of their love, they are as bad as +children when forbidden their sugar-plums. But what's the use of talking +to you about a young lady's feelings!" said the woman, with a vexed toss +of her head; "I never knew a man who understood a woman yet." + +"I am extremely sorry for Miss King," said Jasmine, trying to suppress a +smile. "As you wisely remark, a young lady is a sealed book to me, but +I have always been told that their fancies are as variable as the shadow +of the bamboo; and probably, therefore, though Miss King's sky may +be overcast just now, the gloom will only make her enjoy to-morrow's +sunshine all the more." + +The woman, who was evidently in a hurry to convey the news to her +mistress, returned no answer to this last sally, but, with curtailed +obeisance, took her departure. + +Her non-appearance the next morning confirmed Jasmine in the belief +that her bold departure from truth on the previous evening had had +its curative effect. The relief was great, for she had felt that +these complications were becoming too frequent to be pleasant, and, +reprehensible though it may appear, her relief was mingled with no sort +of compassion for Miss King. Hers was not a nature to sympathise with +such sudden and fierce attachments. Her affection for Tu had been the +growth of many months, and she had no feeling in common with a young +lady who could take a violent liking for a young man simply from seeing +him taking his post-prandial ease. It was therefore with complete +satisfaction that she left the inn in the course of the morning to pay +her farewell visits to the governor and the judge of the province, who +had taken an unusual interest in Colonel Wen's case since Jasmine had +become his personal advocate. Both officials had promised to do all they +could for the prisoner, and had loaded Jasmine with tokens of good will +in the shape of strange and rare fruits and culinary delicacies. On this +particular day the governor had invited her to the midday meal, and it +was late in the afternoon before she found her way back to the inn. + +The following morning she rose early, intending to start before noon, +and was stepping into the courtyard to give directions to "The Dragon," +when, to her surprise, she was accosted by Miss King's servant, who, +with a waggish smile and a cunning shake of the head, said: + +"How can one so young as your Excellency be such a proficient in the art +of inventing flowers of the imagination?" + +"What do you mean?" said Jasmine. + +"Why, last night you told me you were married, and my poor young lady +when she heard it was wrung with grief. But, recovering somewhat, she +sent me to ask your servants whether what you had said was true or not, +for she knows what she's about as well as most people, and they both +with one voice assured me that, far from being married you had not even +exchanged nuptial presents with anybody. You may imagine Miss King's +delight when I took her this news. She at once asked her cousin to call +upon you to make a formal offer of marriage, and she has now sent me to +tell you that he will be here anon." + +Every one knows what it is to pass suddenly from a state of pleasurable +high spirits into deep despondency, to exchange in an instant bright +mental sunshine for cloud and gloom. All, therefore, must sympathise +with poor Jasmine, who believing the road before her to be smooth and +clear, on a sudden became thus aware of a most troublesome and difficult +obstruction. She had scarcely finished calling down anathemas on the +heads of "The Dragon" and his wife, and cursing her own folly for +bringing them with her, than the inn doors were thrown open, and a +servant appeared carrying a long red visiting-card inscribed with the +name of the wealthy inn-proprietor. On the heels of this forerunner +followed young Mr. King, who, with effusive bows, said, "I have ventured +to pay my respects to your Excellency." + +Poor Jasmine was so upset by the whole affair that she lacked some of +the courtesy that was habitual to her, and in her confusion very nearly +seated her guest on her right hand. Fortunately this outrageous breach +of etiquette was avoided, and the pair eventually arranged themselves in +the canonical order. + +"This old son of Han," began Mr. King, "would not have dared to intrude +himself upon your Excellency if it were not that he has a matter of +great delicacy to discuss with you. He has a cousin, the daughter of +Vice-President King, for whom for years he has been trying to find +a suitable match. The position is peculiar, for the lady declares +positively that she will not marry any one she has not seen and approved +of. Until now she has not been able to find any one whom she would care +to marry. But the presence of your Excellency has thrown a light across +her path which has shown her the way to the plum-groves of matrimonial +felicity." + +Here King paused, expecting some reply; but Jasmine was too absorbed in +thought to speak, so Mr. King went on: + +"This old son of Han, hearing that your Excellency is still unmarried, +has taken it upon himself to make a proposal of marriage to you, and to +offer his cousin as your 'basket and broom.' [wife] His interview with +you has, he may say, shown him the wisdom of his cousin's choice, and he +cannot imagine a pair better suited for one another, or more likely to +be happy, than your Excellency and his cousin." + +"I dare not be anything but straightforward with your worship," said +Jasmine, "and I am grateful for the extraordinary affection your cousin +has been pleased to bestow upon me; but I cannot forget that she belongs +to a family which is entitled to pass through the gate of the palace [a +family of distinction], and I fear that my rank is not sufficient for +her. Besides, my father is at present under a cloud, and I am now on +my way to Peking to try to release him from his difficulties. It is no +time, therefore, for me to be binding myself with promises." + +"As to your Excellency's first objection," replied King, "you are +already the wearer of a hat with a silken tassel, and a man need not be +a prophet to foretell that in time to come any office, either civil or +military, will be within your reach. No doubt, also, your business in +Peking will be quickly brought to a satisfactory conclusion, and there +can be no objection, therefore, to our settling the preliminaries now, +and then, on your return from the capital, we can celebrate the wedding. +This will give rest and composure to my cousin's mind, which is now like +a disturbed sea, and will not interfere, I venture to think, with the +affair which calls you to Peking." + +As King proceeded, Jasmine felt that her difficulties were on the +increase. It was impossible that she should explain her position in +full, and she had no sufficient reason at hand to give for rejecting the +proposal made her, though, as the same time, her annoyance was not small +at having such a matter forced upon her at a moment when her mind was +filled with anxieties. "Then," she thought to herself, "there is ahead +of me that explanation which must inevitably come with Wei; so that, +altogether, if it were not for the deeply rooted conviction which I have +that Tu will be mine at last, when he knows what I really am, life would +not be worth having. As for this inn-proprietor, if he has so little +delicacy as to push his cousin upon me at this crisis, I need not have +any compunction regarding him; so perhaps my easiest way of getting out +of the present hobble will be to accept his proposal and to present the +box of precious ointment handed me by Wei for my sister to this ogling +love-sick girl." So turning to King, she said: + +"Since you, sir, and your cousin have honoured me with your regard, I +dare not altogether decline your proposal, and I would therefore beg +you, sir, to hand this," she added, producing the box of ointment, "to +your honourable cousin, as a token of the bond between us, and to convey +to her my promise that, if I don't marry her, I will never marry another +lady." + +Mr. King, with the greatest delight, received the box, and handing it +to the waiting-woman, who stood expectant by, bade her carry it to her +mistress, with the news of the engagement. Jasmine now hoped that her +immediate troubles were over, but King insisted on celebrating the +event by a feast, and it was not until late in the afternoon that she +succeeded in making a start. Once on the road, her anxiety to reach +Peking was such that she travelled night and day, "feeding on wind and +lodging in water." Nor did she rest until she reached a hotel within the +Hata Gate of the capital. + + + +Jasmine's solitary journey had given her abundant time for reflection, +and for the first time she had set herself seriously to consider +her position. She recognised that she had hitherto followed only the +impulses of the moment, of which the main one had been the desire +to escape complications by the wholesale sacrifice of truth; and she +acknowledged to herself that, if justice were evenly dealt out, there +must be a Nemesis in store for her which would bring distress +and possibly disaster upon her. In her calmer moments she felt an +instinctive foreboding that she was approaching a crisis in her fate, +and it was with mixed feelings, therefore, that on the morning after her +arrival she prepared to visit Tu and Wei, who were as yet ignorant of +her presence. + +She dressed herself with more than usual care for the occasion, choosing +to attire herself in a blue silk robe and a mauve satin jacket which Tu +had once admired, topped by a brand-new cap. Altogether her appearance +as she passed through the streets justified the remark made by a +passerby: "A pretty youngster, and more like a maiden of eighteen than a +man." + +The hostelry at which Tu and Wei had taken up their abode was an inn +befitting the dignity of such distinguished scholars. On inquiring at +the door, Jasmine was ushered by a servant through a courtyard to an +inner enclosure, where, under the grateful shade of a wide-spreading +cotton-tree, Tu was reclining at his ease. Jasmine's delight at meeting +her friend was only equalled by the pleasure with which Tu greeted her. +In his strong and gracious presence she became conscious that she was +released from the absorbing care which had haunted her, and her soul +leaped out in new freedom as she asked and answered questions of her +friend. Each had much to say, and it was not for some time, when an +occasional reference brought his name forward that Jasmine noticed the +absence of Wei. When she did, she asked after him. + +"He left this some days ago," said Tu, "having some special business +which called for his presence at home. He did not tell me what it was, +but doubtless it was something of importance." Jasmine said nothing, but +felt pretty certain in her mind as to the object of his hasty return. + +Tu, attributing her silence to a reflection on Wei for having left the +capital before her father's affair was settled, hastened to add: + +"He was very helpful in the matter of your honoured father's difficulty, +and only left when he thought he could not do any more." + +"How do matters stand now?" asked Jasmine, eagerly. + +"We have posted a memorial at the palace gate," said Tu, "and have +arranged that it shall reach the right quarter. Fortunately, also, I +have an acquaintance in the Board of War who has undertaken to do all he +can in that direction, and promises an answer in a few days." + +"I have brought with me," said Jasmine, "a petition prepared by my +father. What do you think about presenting it?" + +"At present I believe that it would only do harm. A superabundance of +memorials is as bad as none at all. Beyond a certain point, they only +irritate officials." + +"Very well," said Jasmine; "I am quite content to leave the conduct of +affairs in your hands." + +"Well then," said Tu, "that being understood, I propose that you should +move your things over to this inn. There is Wei's room at your disposal, +and your constant presence here will be balm to my lonely spirit. At +the Hata Gate you are almost as remote as if you were in our study at +Mienchu." + +Jasmine was at first startled by this proposal. Though she had been +constantly in the company of Tu, she had never lived under the same roof +with him, and she at once recognised that there might be difficulties in +the way of her keeping her secret if she were to be constantly under the +eyes of her friend. But she had been so long accustomed to yield to the +present circumstances, and was so confident that Fortune, which, with +some slight irregularities, had always stood her friend, would not +desert her on the present occasion, that she gave way. + +"By all means," she said. "I will go back to my inn, and bring my things +at once. This writing-case I will leave here. I brought it because it +contains my father's petition." + +So saying, she took her leave, and Tu retired to his easy-chair under +the cotton-tree. But the demon of curiosity was abroad, and alighting on +the arm of Tu's chair, whispered in his ear that it might be well if he +ran his eye over Colonel Wen's petition to see if there was any argument +in it which he had omitted in his statement to the Board of War. At +first, Tu, whose nature was the reverse of inquisitive, declined to +listen to these promptings, but so persistent did they become that he +at last put down his book--"The Spring and Autumn Annals"--and, +seating himself, at the sitting-room table, opened the writing-case +so innocently left by Jasmine. On the top were a number of red +visiting-cards bearing the inscription, in black, of Wen Tsunk'ing, and +beneath these was the petition. Carefully Tu read it through, and passed +mental eulogies on it as he proceeded. The colonel had put his case +skilfully, but Tu had no difficulty in recognising Jasmine's hand, +both in the composition of the document and in the penmanship. "If my +attempt," he thought, "does not succeed, we will try what this will do." +He was on the point of returning it to its resting-place, when he +saw another document in Jasmine's handwriting lying by it. This was +evidently a formal document, probably connected, as he thought, with the +colonel's case, and he therefore unfolded it and read as follows: + +"The faithful maiden, Miss Wen of Mienchu Hien, with burning incense +reverently prays the God of War to release her father from his +present difficulties, and speedily to restore peace to her own soul by +nullifying, in accordance with her desire, the engagement of the bamboo +arrow and the contract of the box of precious ointment. A respectful +petition." + +As Tu read on, surprise and astonishment took possession of his +countenance. A second time he read it through, and then, throwing +himself back in his chair, broke out into a fit of laughter. + +"So," he said to himself, "I have allowed myself to be deceived by a +young girl all these years. And yet not altogether deceived," he added, +trying to find an excuse for himself; "for I have often fancied that +there was the savour of a woman about the 'young noble.' I hope she is +not one of those heaven-born genii who appear on earth to plague men, +and who, just when they have aroused the affections they wished to +excite, ascend through the air and leave their lovers mourning." + +Just at this moment the door opened, and Jasmine entered, looking more +lovely than ever, with the flush begotten by exercise on her beautifully +moulded cheeks. At sight of her Tu again burst out laughing, to +Jasmine's not unnatural surprise, who, thinking that there must be +something wrong with her dress, looked herself up and down, to the +increasing amusement of Tu. + +"So," said he at last, "you deceitful little hussy, you have been +deceiving me all these years by passing yourself off as a man, when in +reality you are a girl." + +Overcome with confusion, Jasmine hung her head, and murmured: + +"Who has betrayed me?" + +"You have betrayed yourself," said Tu, holding up the incriminating +document; "and here we have the story of the arrow with which you shot +the hawk, but what the box of precious ointment means I don't know." + +Confronted with this overwhelming evidence, poor Jasmine remained +speechless, and dared not even lift her eyes to glance at Tu. That young +man, seeing her distress, and being in no wise possessed by the scorn +which he had put into his tone, crossed over to her and gently led her +to a seat by him. + +"Do you remember," he said, in so altered a voice that Jasmine's heart +ceased to throb as if it wished to force an opening through the finely +formed bosom which enclosed it, "on one occasion in our study at home I +wished that you were a woman that you might become my wife? Little did +I think that my wish might be gratified. Now it is, and I beseech you to +let us join our lives in one, and seek the happiness of the gods in each +other's perpetual presence." + +But, as if suddenly recollecting herself, Jasmine withdrew her hand from +his, and, standing up before him with quivering lip and eyes full of +tears, said: + +"No. It can never be." + +"Why not?" said Tu, in alarmed surprise. + +"Because I am bound to Wei." + +"What! Does Wei know your secret?" + +"No. But do you remember when I shot that arrow in front of your study?" + +"Perfectly," said Tu. "But what has that to do with it?" + +"Why, Wei discovered my name on the shaft, and I, to keep my secret, +told him that it was my sister's name. He then wanted to marry my +sister, and I undertook, fool that I was, to arrange it for him. Now I +shall be obliged to confess the truth, and he will have a right to claim +me instead of my supposed sister." + +"But," said Tu, "I have a prior right to that of Wei, for it was I who +found the arrow. And in this matter I shall be ready to outface him at +all hazards. But," he added, "Wei, I am sure, is not the man to take an +unfair advantage of you." + +"Do you really think so?" asked Jasmine. + +"Certainly I do," said Tu. + +"Then--then--I shall be--very glad," said poor Jasmine, hesitatingly, +overcome with bashfulness, but full of joy. + +At which gracious consent Tu recovered the hand which had been withdrawn +from his, and Jasmine sank again into the chair at his side. + +"But, Tu, dear," she said, after a pause, "there is something else that +I must tell you before I can feel that my confessions are over." + +"What! You have not engaged yourself to any one else, have you?" said +Tu, laughing. + +"Yes, I have," she replied, with a smile; and she then gave her lover +a full and particular account of how Mr. King had proposed to her on +behalf of his cousin, and how she had accepted her. + +"How could you frame your lips to utter such untruths?" said Tu, half +laughing and half in earnest. + +"O Tu, falsehood is so easy and truth so difficult sometimes. But I feel +that I have been very, very wicked," said poor Jasmine, covering her +face with her hands. + +"Well, you certainly have got yourself into a pretty hobble. So far as +I can make out, you are at the present moment engaged to one young lady +and two young men." + +The situation, thus expressed, was so comical that Jasmine could +not refrain from laughing through her tears; but, after a somewhat +lengthened consultation with her lover, her face recovered its wonted +serenity, and round it hovered a halo of happiness which added light and +beauty to every feature. There is something particularly entrancing in +receiving the first confidences of a pure and loving soul. So Tu thought +on this occasion, and while Jasmine was pouring the most secret workings +of her inmost being into his ear, those lines of the poet of the Sung +dynasty came irresistibly into his mind: + + 'T is sweet to see the flowers woo the sun, + To watch the quaint wiles of the cooing dove, + But sweeter far to hear the dulcet tones + Of her one loves confessing her great love. + +But there is an end to everything, even to the "Confucian Analects," +and so there was also to this lovers' colloquy. For just as Jasmine was +explaining, for the twentieth time, the origin and basis of her love for +Tu, a waiter entered to announce the arrival of her luggage. + +"I don't know quite," said Tu, "where we are to put your two men. But, +by-the-bye," he added, as the thought struck him, "did you really travel +all the way in the company of these two men only?" + +"O Tu," said Jasmine, laughing, "I have something else to confess to +you." + +"What! another lover?" said Tu, affecting horror and surprise. + +"No; not another lover, but another woman. The short, stout one is a +woman, and came as my maid. She is the wife of 'The Dragon.'" + +"Well, now have you told me all? For I am getting so confused about the +people you have transformed from women to men, that I shall have doubts +about my own sex next." + +"Yes, Tu, dear; now you know all," said Jasmine, laughing. But not all +the good news which was in store for him, for scarcely had Jasmine done +speaking when a letter arrived from his friend in the Board of War, who +wrote to say that he had succeeded in getting the military intendant of +Mienchu transferred to a post in the province of Kwangsi, and that +the departure of this noxious official would mean the release of the +colonel, as he alone was the colonel's accuser. This news added one more +chord of joy which had been making harmony in Jasmine's heart for some +hours, and readily she agreed with Tu that they should set off homeward +on the following morning. + +With no such adventure as that which had attended Jasmine's journey to +the capital, they reached Mienchu, and, to their delight, were received +by the colonel in his own yamun. After congratulating him on his +release, which Jasmine took care he should understand was due +entirely to Tu's exertions, she gave him a full account of her various +experiences on the road and at the capital. + +"It is like a story out of a book of marvels," said her father, "and +even now you have not exhausted all the necessary explanations. For, +since my release, your friend Wei has been here to ask for my daughter +in marriage. From some questions I put to him, he is evidently unaware +that you are my only daughter, and I therefore put him off and told him +to wait until you returned. He is in a very impatient state, and, no +doubt, will be over shortly." + +Nor was the colonel wrong, for almost immediately Wei was announced, +who, after expressing the genuine pleasure he felt at seeing Jasmine +again, began at once on the subject which filled his mind. + +"I am so glad," he said, "to have this opportunity of asking you to +explain matters. At present I am completely nonplussed. On my return +from Peking I inquired of one of your father's servants about his +daughter. 'He has not got one,' quoth the man. I went to another, and he +said, 'You mean the "young noble," I suppose.' 'No, I don't,' I said; 'I +mean his sister.' 'Well, that is the only daughter I know of,' said he. +Then I went to your father, and all I could get out of him was, 'Wait +until the "young noble" comes home.' Please tell me what all this +means." + +"Your great desire is to marry a beautiful and accomplished girl, is it +not?" said Jasmine. + +"That certainly is my wish," said Wei. + +"Well then," said Jasmine, "I can assure you that your betrothal present +is in the hand of such a one, and a girl whom to look at is to love." + +"That may be," said Wei, "But my wish is to marry your sister." + +"Will you go and talk to Tu about it?" said Jasmine, who felt that the +subject was becoming too difficult for her, and whose confidence in Tu's +wisdom was unbounded, "and he will explain it all to you." + +Even Tu, however, found it somewhat difficult to explain Jasmine's +sphinx-like mysteries, and on certain points Wei showed a disposition +to be anything but satisfied. Jasmine's engagement to Tu implied his +rejection, and he was disposed to be splenetic and disagreeable about +it. His pride was touched, and in his irritation he was inclined to +impute treachery to his friend and deceit to Jasmine. To the first +charge Tu had a ready answer, but the second was all the more annoying +because there was some truth in it. However, Tu was not in the humour to +quarrel, and being determined to seek peace and ensue it, he overlooked +Wei's innuendos and made out the best case he could for his bride. On +Miss King's beauty, virtues, and ability he enlarged with a wealth of +diction and power of imagination which astonished himself, and Jasmine +also, to whom he afterward repeated the conversation. "Why, Tu, dear," +said that artless maiden, "how can you know all this about Miss King? +You have never seen her, and I am sure I never told you half of all +this." + +"Don't ask questions," said the enraptured Tu. "Let it be enough for you +to know that Wei is as eager for the possession of Miss King as he +was for your sister, and that he has promised to be my best man at our +wedding to-morrow." + +And Wei was as good as his word. With every regard to ceremony and +ancient usage, the marriage of Tu and Jasmine was celebrated in the +presence of relatives and friends, who, attracted by the novelty of the +antecedent circumstances, came from all parts of the country to witness +the nuptials. By Tu's especial instructions also a prominence was +allowed to Wei, which gratified his vanity and smoothed down the ruffled +feathers of his conceit. + +Jasmine thought that no time should be lost in reducing Miss King to the +same spirit of acquiescence to which Wei had been brought, and on the +evening of her wedding-day she broached the subject to Tu. + +"I shall not feel, Tu, dear," she said, "that I have gained absolution +for my many deceptions until that very forward Miss King has been talked +over into marrying Wei; and I insist, therefore," she added, with an +amount of hesitancy which reduced the demand to the level of a plaintive +appeal, "that we start to-morrow for Ch'engtu to see the young woman." + +"Ho! ho!" replied Tu, intensely amused at her attempted bravado. +"These are brave words, and I suppose that I must humbly register your +decrees." + +"O Tu, you know what I mean. You know that, like a child who takes a +delight in conquering toy armies, I love to fancy that I can command so +strong a man as you are. But, Tu, if you knew how absolutely I rely on +your judgment, you would humour my folly and say yes." + +There was a subtle incense of love and flattery about this appeal +which, backed as it was by a look of tenderness and beauty, made it +irresistible; and the arrangements for the journey were made in strict +accordance with Jasmine's wishes. + +On arriving at the inn which was so full of chastening memories to +Jasmine, Tu sent his card to Mr. King, who, flattered by the attention +paid him by so eminent a scholar, cordially invited Tu to his house. + +"To what," he said, as Tu, responding to his invitation, entered +his reception-hall, "am I to attribute the honour of receiving your +illustrious steps in my mean apartments?" + +"I have heard," said Tu, "that the beautiful Miss King is your +Excellency's cousin, and having a friend who is desirous of gaining her +hand, I have come to plead on his behalf." + +"I regret to say," replied King, "that your Excellency has come too +late, as she has already received an engagement token from a Mr. Wen, +who passed here lately on his way to Peking." + +"Mr. Wen is a friend of mine also," said Tu, "and it was because I knew +that his troth was already plighted that I ventured to come on behalf of +him of whom I have spoken." + +"Mr. Wen," said King, "is a gentleman and a scholar, and having given a +betrothal present, he is certain to communicate with us direct in case +of any difficulty." + +"Will you, old gentleman," [a term of respect] said Tu, producing the +lines which Miss King had sent Jasmine, "just cast your eyes over these +verses, written to Wen by your cousin? Feeling most regretfully that he +was unable to fulfil his engagement, Wen gave these to me as a testimony +of the truth of what I now tell you." + +King took the paper handed him by Tu, and recognised at a glance his +cousin's handwriting. + +"Alas!" he said, "Mr Wen told us he was engaged, but, not believing him, +I urged him to consent to marry my cousin. If you will excuse me, sir," +he added, "I will consult with the lady as to what should be done." + +After a short absence he returned. + +"My cousin is of the opinion," he said, "that she cannot enter into any +new engagement until Mr. Wen has come here himself and received back the +betrothal present which he gave her on parting." + +"I dare not deceive you, old gentleman, and will tell you at once that +that betrothal present was not Wen's but was my unworthy friend Wei's, +and came into Wen's possession in a way that I need not now explain." + +"Still," said King, "my cousin thinks Mr. Wen should present himself +here in person and tell his own story; and I must say that I am of her +opinion." + +"It is quite impossible that Mr. Wen should return here," replied Tu; +"but my 'stupid thorn' [wife] is in the adjoining hostelry, and would be +most happy to explain fully to Miss King Wen's entire inability to play +the part of a husband to her." + +"If your honourable consort would meet my cousin, she, I am sure, will +be glad to talk the matter over with her." + +With Tu's permission, Miss King's maid was sent to the inn to invite +Jasmine to call on her mistress. The maid, who was the same who had +acted as Miss King's messenger on the former occasion, glanced long and +earnestly at Jasmine. Her features were familiar to her, but she could +not associate them with any lady of her acquaintance. As she conducted +her to Miss King's apartments, she watched her stealthily, and became +more and more puzzled by her appearance. Miss King received her with +civility, and after exchanging wishes that each might be granted ten +thousand blessings, Jasmine said, smiling: + +"Do you recognise Mr. Wen?" + +Miss King looked at her, and seeing in her a likeness to her beloved, +said: + +"What relation are you to him, lady?" + +"I am his very self!" said Jasmine. + +Miss King opened her eyes wide at this startling announcement, and gazed +earnestly at her. + +"_Haiyah!_" cried her maid, clapping her hands, "I thought there was +a wonderful likeness between the lady and Mr. Wen. But who would have +thought that she was he?" + +"But what made you disguise yourself in that fashion?" asked Miss King, +in an abashed and somewhat vexed tone. + +"My father was in difficulties," said Jasmine, "and as it was necessary +that I should go to Peking to plead for him, I dressed as a man for the +convenience of travel. You will remember that in the first instance I +declined your flattering overtures, but when I found that you persisted +in your proposal, not being able to explain the truth, I thought the +best thing to do was to hand you my friend's betrothal present which I +had with me, intending to return and explain matters. And you will admit +that in one thing I was truthful." + +"What was that?" asked the maid. + +"Why," answered Jasmine, "I said that if I did not marry your lady I +would never marry any woman." + +"Well, yes," said the maid, laughing, "you have kept your faith royally +there." + +"The friend I speak of," continued Jasmine, "has now taken his doctor's +degree, and this stupid husband and wife have come from Mienchu to make +you a proposal on his behalf." + +Miss King was not one who could readily take in an entirely new and +startling idea, and she sat with a half-dazed look, staring at +Jasmine without uttering a word. If it had not been for the maid, the +conversation would have ceased; but that young woman was determined to +probe the matter to the bottom. + +"You have not told us," she said, "the gentleman's name. And will you +explain why you call him your friend? How could you be on terms of +friendship with him?" + +"From my childhood," said Jasmine, "I have always dressed as a boy. I +went to a boy's school--" + +"_Haiyah!_" interjected the maid. + +"And afterward I joined my husband and this gentleman, Mr. Wei, in a +reading-party." + +"Didn't they discover your secret?" + +"No." + +"Never?" + +"Never." + +"That's odd," said the maid. "But will you tell us something about this +Mr. Wei?" + +Upon this, Jasmine launched out in a glowing eulogy upon her friend. +She expatiated with fervour on his youth, good looks, learning, and +prospects, and with such effect did she speak that Miss King, who +began to take in the situation, ended by accepting cordially Jasmine's +proposal. + +"And now, lady, you must stay and dine with me," said Miss King, when +the bargain was struck, "while my cousin entertains your husband in the +hall." + +At this meal the beginning of a friendship was formed between the two +ladies which lasted ever afterward, though it was somewhat unevenly +balanced. Jasmine's stronger nature felt compassion mingled with liking +for the pretty doll-like Miss King, while the young lady entertained the +profoundest admiration for her guest. + +There was nothing to delay the fulfilment of the engagement thus happily +arranged, and at the next full moon Miss King had an opportunity of +comparing her bridegroom with the picture which Jasmine had drawn of +him. + +Scholars are plentiful in China, but it was plainly impossible that men +of such distinguished learning as Tu and Wei should be left among +the unemployed, and almost immediately after their marriage they were +appointed to important posts in the empire. Tu rose rapidly to the +highest rank, and died, at a good old age, viceroy of the metropolitan +province and senior guardian to the heir apparent. Wei was not so +supremely fortunate, but then, as Tu used to say, "he had not a Jasmine +to help him." + + + + +THE REVENGE OF HER RACE, By Mary Beaumont + + +The low hedge, where the creepers climbed, divided the lawn and its +magnificent Wellingtonias from the meadow. There was little grass to be +seen, for it was at this time one vast profusion of delicate ixias of +every bright and tender shade. + +The evening was still, and the air heavy with scent. In a room opening +upon the veranda wreathed with white-and-scarlet passion-flowers, where +she could see the garden and the meadow, and, beyond all, the Mountain +Beautiful, lay a sick woman. Her dark face was lovely as an autumn leaf +is lovely--hectic with the passing life. Her eyes wandered to the upper +snows of the mountain, from time to time resting upon the brown-haired +English girl who sat on a low stool by her side, holding the frail hand +in her cool, firm clasp. + +The invalid was speaking; her voice was curiously sweet, and there was a +peculiarity about the "s," and an occasional turn of the sentence, which +told the listener that her English was an acquired language. + +"I am glad he is not here," she said slowly. "I do not want him to have +pain." + +"But perhaps, Mrs. Denison, you will be much better in a day or two, and +able to welcome him when he comes back." + +"No, I shall not be here when he comes back, and it is just as it should +be. I asked him to turn round as he left the garden, and I could see +him, oh, so well! He looked kind and so beautiful, and he waved to me +his hand. Now he will come back, and he will be sad. He did not want +to leave me, but the governor sent for him. He will be sad, and he will +remember that I loved him, and some day he will be glad again." She +smiled into the troubled face near her. + +The girl stroked the thick dark hair lovingly. + +"Don't," she implored; "it hurts me. You are better to-night, and the +children are coming in." Mrs. Denison closed her eyes, and with her left +hand she covered her face. + +"No, not the children," she whispered, "not my darlings. I cannot bear +it. I must see them no more." She pressed her companion's hand with a +sudden close pressure. "But you will help them, Alice; you will make +them English like you--like him. We will not pretend to-night; it is not +long that I shall speak to you. I ask you to promise me to help them to +be English." + +"Dear," the girl urged, "they are such a delicious mixture of England +and New Zealand--prettier, sweeter than any mere English child could +ever be. They are enchanting." + +But into the dying woman's eyes leaped an eager flame. + +"They must all be English, no Maori!" she cried. A violent fit of +coughing interrupted her, and when the paroxysm was over she was +too exhausted to speak. The English nurse, Mrs. Bentley, an elderly +Yorkshire woman, who had been with Mrs. Denison since her first baby +came six years ago, and who had, in fact, been Horace Denison's own +nurse-maid, came in and sent the agitated girl into the garden. "For you +haven't had a breath of fresh air to-day," she said. + +At the door Alice turned. The large eyes were resting upon her with an +intent and solemn regard, in which lay a message. "What was it?" she +thought, as she passed through the wide hall sweet with flowers. "She +wanted to say something; I am sure she did. To-morrow I will ask her." +But before the morrow came she knew. Mrs. Dennison had said _good-bye_. + +The funeral was over. Mr. Denison, who had looked unaccountably ill and +weary for months, had been sent home by Mr. Danby for at least a year's +change and rest, and the doctor's young sister had yielded to various +pressure, and promised to stay with the children until he returned. +There was every reason for it. She had loved and been loved by the +gentle Maori mother; she delighted in the dark beauty and sweetness of +the children. And they, on their side, clung to her as to an adorable +fairy relative, dowered with love and the fruits of love--tales and new +games and tender ways. Best reason of all, in a sense, Mrs. Bentley, +that kind autocrat, entreated her to stay, "as the happiest thing for +the children, and to please that poor lamb we laid yonder, who fair +longed that you should! She was mightily taken up with you, Miss +Danby, and you've your brother and his wife near, so that you won't be +lonesome, and if there's aught I can do to make you comfortable, you've +only to speak, miss." As for Mr. Denison, he was pathetically grateful +and relieved when Alice promised to remain. + +After the evening romp and the last good-night, when the two elder +children, Ben and Marie, called after her mother, Maritana, had given +her their last injunctions to be sure and come for them "her very own +self" on her way down to breakfast in the morning, she usually rode down +between the cabbage-trees, down by the old rata, fired last autumn, +away through the grasslands to the doctor's house, a few miles nearer +Rochester; or he and his wife would ride out to chat with her. But there +were many evenings when she preferred the quiet of the airy house and +the garden. The colonial life was new to her, everything had its charm, +and in the colonies there is always a letter to write to those at +home--the mail-bag is never satisfied. On such evenings it was her +custom to cross the meadow to the copse of feathery trees beyond, where, +sung to by the brook and the Tui, the children's mother slept. And from +the high presence of the Mountain Beautiful there fell a dew of peace. + +She would often ask Mrs. Bentley to sit with her until bedtime, +and revel in the shrewd north-country woman's experiences, and her +impressions of the new land to which love had brought her. Both women +grew to have a sincere and trustful affection for each other, and one +night, seven or eight months after Mrs. Denison's death, Mrs. Bentley +told a story which explained what had frequently puzzled Alice--the +patient sorrow in Mrs. Denison's eyes, and Mr. Denison's harassed and +dejected manner. "But for your goodness to the children," said the old +woman, "and the way that precious baby takes to you, I don't think I +should be willing to say what I am going to do, miss. Though my dear +mistress wished it, and said, the very last night, 'You must tell her +all about it, some day, Nana,'--and I promised, to quiet her,--I don't +think I could bring myself to it if I hadn't lived with you and known +you." And then the good nurse told her strange and moving tale. + +She described how her master had come out young and careless-hearted to +New Zealand in the service of the government, and how scandalised and +angry his father and mother, the old Tory squire and his wife, had been +to receive from him, after a year or two, letters brimming with a boyish +love for his "beautiful Maori princess," whom he described as having +"the sweetest heart and the loveliest eyes in the world." It gave them +little comfort to hear that her father was one of the wealthiest Maoris +in the island, and that, though but half civilised himself, he had had +his daughter well educated in the "bishop's" and other English schools. +To them she was a savage. There was no threat of disinheritance, for +there was nothing for him to inherit. There was little money, and the +estate was entailed on the elder brother. But all that could be done +to intimidate him was done, and in vain. Then silence fell between the +parents and the son. + +But one spring day came the news of a grandson, called Benjamin after +his grandfather, and an urgent letter from their boy himself, enclosing +a prettily and humbly worded note from the new strange daughter, begging +for an English nurse. She told them that she had now no father and no +mother, for they had died before the baby came, and if she might love +her husband's parents a little she would be glad. + +"My lady read the letters to me herself," Mrs. Bentley said; "I'd taken +the housekeeper's place a bit before, and she asked me to find her a +sensible young woman. Well, I tried, but there wasn't a girl in the +place that was fit to nurse Master Horace's child. And the end of it +was, I came myself, for Master Horace had been like my own when he was a +little lad. My lady pretended to be vexed with me, but the day I sailed +she thanked me in words I never thought to hear from her, for she was +a bit proud always." The faithful servant's voice trembled. She leaned +back in her chair, and forgot for the moment the new house and the new +duties. She was back again in the old nursery with the fair-haired +child playing about her knees. But Alice's face recalled her, and she +continued the story. She had, she said, dreaded the meeting with her new +mistress, and was prepared to find her "a sort of a heathen woman, who'd +pull down Master Horace till he couldn't call himself a gentleman." + +But when she saw the graceful creature who received her with gentle +words and gestures of kindliness, and when she found her young master +not only content, but happy, and when she took in her arms the +laughing healthy baby, she felt--though she regretted its dark eyes and +hair--more at home than she could have believed possible. The nurseries +were so large and comfortable, and so much consideration was shown to +her, that she confessed, "I should have been more ungrateful than a cat +if I hadn't settled comfortable." + +Then came nearly five happy years, during which time her young mistress +had found a warm and secure place in the good Yorkshire heart. "She was +that loving and that kind that Dick Burdas, the groom, used to say that +he believed she was an angel as had took up with them dark folks, to +show 'em what an angel was like." Mrs. Bentley went on: + +"She wasn't always quite happy, and I wondered what brought the shadow +into her face, and why she would at times sigh that deep that I could +have cried. After a bit I knew what it was. It was the Maori in her. She +told me one night that she was a wicked woman, and ought never to have +married Master Horace, for she got tired sometimes of the English house +and its ways, and longed for her father's _whare_; (that's a native hut, +miss). She grieved something awful one day when she had been to see old +Tim, the Maori who lives behind the stables. She called herself a bad +and ungrateful woman, and thought there must be some evil spirit in her +tempting her into the old ways, because, when she saw Tim eating, and +you know what bad stuff they eat, she had fair longed to join him. She +gave me a fright I didn't get over for nigh a week. She leaned her bonny +head against my knee, and I stroked her cheek and hummed some silly +nursery tune,--for she was all of a tremble and like a child,--and she +fell asleep just where she was." + +"Poor thing!" said Alice, softly. + +"Eh, but it's what's coming that upsets me, ma'am. Eh, what suffering +for my pretty lamb, and her that wouldn't have hurt a worm! Baby would +be about six months old when she came in one day with him in her arms, +and they _were_ a picture. His little hand was fast in her hair. She +always walked as if she'd wheels on her feet, that gliding and graceful. +She had on a sort of sheeny yellow silk, and her cheeks were like them +damask roses at home, and her eyes fair shone like stars. 'Isn't he a +beauty, Nana?' she asked me. 'If only he had blue eyes, and that hair +of gold like my husband's, and not these ugly eyes of mine!' And as she +spoke she sighed as I dreaded to hear. Then she told me to help her to +unpack her new dress from Paris, which she was to wear at the Rochester +races the next day. Master Horace always chose her dresses, and he was +right proud of her in them. And next morning he came into the nursery +with her, and she was all in pale red, and that beautiful! 'Isn't she +scrumptious, Nana?' he said, in his boyish way. 'Don't spoil her dress, +children. How like her Marie grows!' Those two little ones they had got +her on her knees on the ground, and were hugging her as if they couldn't +let her go. But when he said that, she got up very still and white. + +"'I am sorry,' she said; 'they must never be like me.' + +"'They can't be any one better, can they, baby?' he answered her, and he +tossed the child nearly up to the ceiling. But he looked worried as he +went out. I saw them drive away, and they looked happy enough. And oh, +miss, I saw them come back. We were in the porch, me and the children. +Master Horace lifted her down, and I heard him say, 'Never mind, Marie.' +But she never looked his way nor ours; she walked straight in and +upstairs to her room, past my bonny darling with his arm stretched out +to her, and past Miss Marie, who was jumping up and down, and shouting +'Muvver'; and I heard her door shut. Then Master Horace took baby from +me. + +"'Go up to her,' he said, and I could scarce hear him. His face was all +drawn like, but I felt that silly and stupid that I could say nothing, +and just went upstairs." Mrs. Bentley put her knitting down, and +throwing her apron over her head sobbed aloud. + +"O nurse, what was it?" cried Alice, and the colour left her cheeks. "Do +tell me. I am so sorry for them. What was it?" It was several minutes +before the good woman could recover herself; then she began: + +"She told me, and Dick Burdas he told me, and it was like this. When +they got to the race-course,--it was the first races they'd had in +Rochester,--all the gentry was there, and those that knew her always +made a deal of her, she had such half-shy, winning ways. And she seemed +very bright, Dick said, talking with the governor's lady, who is full of +fun and sparkle. The carriages were all together, and Major Beaumont, +a kind old gentleman who's always been a good friend to Master Horace, +would have them in his carriage for luncheon, or whatever it was. Dick +says he was thinking that she was the prettiest lady there, when his eye +was caught by two or three parties of Maoris setting themselves right +in front of the carriages. There were four or five in each lot, and they +were mostly old. They got out their sharks' flesh and that bad corn they +eat, and began to make their meal of them. Near Mrs. Denison there +was one old man with a better sort of face, and Dick heard her say to +master, 'Isn't he like my father?' What Master Horace answered he didn't +hear; he says he never saw anything like her face, so sad and wild, and +working for all the world as if something were fighting her within. +Then all in a minute she ran out and slipped down in her beautiful +dress close by the old Maori in his dirty rags, and was rubbing her +face against his, as them folks do when they meet. She had just taken +a mouthful of the raw fish when Master Horace missed her. He hadn't +noticed her slip away. But in a moment he seemed to understand what it +meant. He saw the Maori come out strong in her face, and he knew the +Maori had got the better of everything, husband and friends and all. +He gave a little cry, and in a minute he had her on her feet and was +bringing her back to the carriage. Some folks thought Dick Burdas +a rough hard man, and I know he was a shocker of a lad (he was fra +Whitby), but that night he cried like a baby when he tell 't me," and +Mrs. Bentley fell for a moment into the dialect of her youth. + +"He said," she continued, "that she looked like a poor stricken thing +condemned, and let herself be led back as submissive as a child, and +Master Horace's face was like the dead. He didn't think any one but the +major and Dr. Danby saw her go, all was done in a minute. But it was +done, and some few had seen, and it got out, and things were said that +wasn't true. Not the doctor! No, miss, you needn't tell me that; he's +told none, that I'll warrant. He's faithful and he's close." + +"O Mrs. Bentley, how dreadful for her, how dreadful!" and the girl went +down on her knees by the old woman, her tears flowing fast. + +"That's it, miss, you understand. I feel like that. It was bad enough +for Master Horace with the future before him, and his children to +think of, but for her it was desperate cruel. Eh, ma'am, what she went +through! She loved more than you'd have thought us poor human beings +could. And, after all, the nature was in her; she didn't put it there. +I've had a deal to do to keep down sinful thoughts since then; there's a +lot of things that's wrong in this world, ma'am." + +"What did she do?" Alice whispered. + +"She! She was for going away and leaving everything; she felt herself +the worst woman in the world. It was only by begging and praying of her +on my knees that I got her to stay in the house that night, for she was +so far English, and had such a fancy, that she saw everything blacker +than any Englishwoman would, even the partick'lerest. Afterward Master +Horace was that good and gentle, and she loved him so much, that he +persuaded her to say nothing more about it, and to try to live as if it +hadn't been. And so she seemed to do, outward like, to other people. But +it wasn't ever the same again. Something had broken in them both; with +him it was his trust and his pride, but in her it was her heart." + +"But the children--surely they comforted her." + +"Eh, miss, that was the worst. Poor lamb, poor lamb! Never after that +day, though they were more to her nor children ever were to a mother +before, would she have them with her. Just a morning and a good-night +kiss, and a quarter of an hour at most, and I must take them away. +She watched them play in the garden from her window or the little hill +there, and when they were asleep she would sit by them for hours, saying +how bonny they were and how good they were growing. And she looked after +their clothes and their food and every little toy and pleasure, but +never came in for a romp and a chat any more." + +"Dear, brave heart!" murmured the girl. + +"Yes, ma'am, you feel for her, I know. She was fair terrified of them +turning Maori and shaming their father. That was it. You didn't notice? +No; after you came she was too ill to bear them about, and it seemed +natural, I dare say. The Maoris are a fearful delicate set of folks. A +bad cold takes them off into consumption directly. And with her there +was the sorrow as well as the cold. It was wonderful that she lived so +long." + +Alice threw her arms round Mrs. Bentley's neck. + +"O nurse, it is all so dreadful and sad. Couldn't we have somehow kept +her with us and made her happy?" + +The old woman held her close. "Nay, my dear bairn, never after that +happened. It, or worse, might have come again. It's something stronger +in them than we know; it's the very blood, I'm thinking. But she's gone +to be the angel that Dick always said she was." + +Alice looked away over the starlit garden to where the plumy trees +stirred in the night wind. "No," she said, fervently, "not 'gone to be,' +nurse dear; she was an angel always. Dick was right." + + + + +KING BILLY OF BALLARAT, By Morley Roberts + + +King Billy was given to strolling up and down the streets of Ballarat +when that eviscerated city was merely in process of disembowelment, +before alluvial mining gave way to quartz-crushing, when the individual +had a chance, if a very vague one, of sudden and delightful fortune. The +Ballarat blacks were a scaly lot, to talk of them like ill-fed hogs, as +men were wont to do. They dwined and dwindled, as natives will before +the resources of civilisation: the bloodthirsty ones got killed out; +the rumthirsty ones died out; the wild corroboree was reduced to a +poverty-stricken imitation of its former glory. King Billy's authority +grew less with the increase of his clothes. The brass plate with his +name on it was about the last relic of his precarious power, and was +chiefly valued as a means of notifying the public generally that they +might stand drinks to a monarch if they saw fit and were not too humble. +He was not haughty, and never presumed on his plate, as parvenus will. +He came of an ancient stock, and could afford to condescend, even if he +could not afford to pay for drinks. He was very kind to children,--white +children, of course,--and was hale-fellow-well-met with many of them. + +He was particularly fond of Annie Colborn, whose father was a magistrate +and a gold commissioner, and a person of very great importance. Whether +or not King Billy was wise in his generation, and out of the unwritten +Scriptures of the somber bush had culled a maxim inculcating the wisdom +of making friends of the sons of Mammon, I cannot say, but he was always +good to Annie. For my own part, I do not believe the simple-hearted old +king had any such notion inside his thick antipodean skull. He was good +because he was not bad, which is the very best morality after all, and a +great advance on much we hear of. And, besides, he was sometimes +hungry, and Mr. Colborn's Chinese cook was very haughty, and not to +be approached except through an intermediary. And who so capable of +conciliating Wong as Annie? Wong would make her cakes even when his +pigtail hung despondently from his aching head after an opium debauch, +and his cheeks were shining with anything but gladness; for if you get +drunk very often on opium you shine. + +Old Billy was mostly to be found where there was a chance of a drink; +but if the fountains were dried up, or he had been insulted by some +democratic, revolutionary, king-hating miner knocking his high hat down +over his eyes, he usually went up to Mr. Colborn's place, and sat on +the fence, or on a log outside the gate. So he was often very melancholy +when Annie came out. One day his hat was very, very badly bulged indeed. + +"Your hat is very bad to-day, King Billy," said six-year-old Annie, as +she stood in front of him critically, with her head on one side. Without +knowing it, the child had come to look upon the state of the poor king's +hat as emblematical of his state of mind. When it shut up like a closed +concertina his barometer was low. + +"Yes, missy," said the king; "white man knock 'um over eyes, and"--with +a rub down his face--"skin 'um nose." + +She inspected his nose carefully--though from a certain distance, +because her own nose was very good, both inside and out, and she knew +the king never got washed unless it rained when he was very drunk. And +this was the end of summer. It had not rained since November. + +"There is not very much skin off," said Annie. "You had better wash it." + +The king made a wry face and changed the conversation. + +"You got 'um hat, Missy Annie? One hat baal brokum, allasame white +fellow hat. Bad hat, King Billy bad; black fellow, white fellow laugh." + +He peered into his hat, and, trying to straighten it out, put his fist +through the side. Poor Billy looked as if he could cry. + +"You stop a minute," said Annie, and, flying indoors, she brought out a +very good high hat indeed. "Budgeree!" thought the king, that was a good +hat. He could go down the streets like a king indeed, able to hold up +his head with any rich man in Ballarat. He tried it on, and though it +was much too big, he knew it shone. And the glory of a hat is in its +shining as much as its shape; even a black fellow knows that. + +But that hat very nearly led to serious trouble. For one thing, Mr. +Colborn missed it; and never thinking Annie had given it away, when +he saw the king sitting on the fence decorated with it, he stopped and +interviewed him. + +"Where did you get that hat, you old thief?" asked the magistrate, +without any politeness to him who ruled the land before white men broke +into the country. Some in authority are polite to those they dispossess; +the Prussians, for instance, to the miserable King Billys who strut +about the empire. But the Anglo-Saxon only respects himself, and even +that to a limited extent, in new conquests. + +The question troubled King Billy greatly. He did not know that Mr. +Colborn would as soon have thought of murdering Annie as of bullying +her; so he lied promptly: "Me buy 'um, Mistah Cobon!" + +Mr. Colborn took it off of his head, and saw that it was his, as he had +thought. What he would have said I do not know, for just then he heard a +voice behind him: + +"Papa, it is my fault; I gave it to King Billy." + +Colborn turned round and took her up, letting fall the hat as he did +so. Billy made a jump, picked it up, and, in his agitation, brushed it +carefully the wrong way. + +"My dear, if you gave it to him it's all right. But why didn't the old +fool tell me?" + +"He's not an old fool, papa, and you must not say so. He's a good man, +and I think he thought you would be angry with me. Didn't you, King +Billy?" And the king, with a smile of conscious rectitude, admitted it +was so. + +Mr. Colborn gave him sixpence; and he gave Annie a great many kisses, +declaring, with uncommon thoughtlessness, that whatever she did was +right, and that she could give the king all his house, and Australia to +boot. Whereon King Billy smiled a smile that was portentous, and showed +his teeth to the uttermost recesses of his ample mouth. Looking down, he +surveyed the rest of his clothes, which in parts resembled the child's +definition of a net as a lot of holes tied together with string, and, +looking up, he inspected Mr. Colborn as if estimating the resources of +his wardrobe. But being urgently smitten with the necessity of getting +rid of his sixpence, he shambled off into the town. Other matters might +wait; that admitted of no delay. + +The mind of King Billy was not a big mind; it would no more have taken +in an abstract idea than his _gunyah_ would have accommodated a grand +piano. He was as simple as sunlight, and to resolve his intellect into +seven colours would want the most ingenious spectroscope. But he could +make an inference from a positive fact, and, having made it, he did not +allow more remote deductions to trouble his legitimate conclusion. He +ceased to fear Mr. Colborn, and began to look upon the magistrate's +property as if it were at least half his own. So he got very drunk +on the hospitality of a new chum miner who had been successful, and +presently, presuming on his new possessions, got into a fight with +his entertainer and a disrespectful subking of his own blacks, and was +reduced to worse rags than ever. + +Next morning he sat outside the magistrate's house, on the lowest log he +could find, and when Mr. Colborn came out he tackled him with the air of +a subject king demanding redress of his suzerain. + +"Well, Billy, what is it?" asked the suzerain. + +"You belong gublement?" said Billy the king, with a question, an implied +doubt, and a great complaint in his voice. Colborn laughed. + +"Why, yes, Billy; I belong to the government, I suppose." + +"Then," said Billy, "what you say to white fellow make 'um black fellow +drunk, knock 'um all about? Call you that gublement?" And he showed his +kingly robe, which had once been a frock-coat, with great disgust. + +However, he met with no favour, and was told that he should not get +drunk--that it served him right; with which magisterial decision Colborn +got on his horse and rode off to the flat. + +The king sat down sadly and considered thickly in his slow brain. +Annie did not come out, and he knew better than to ask for her, for Mr. +Colborn's niece, who kept house for him, was but newly come from home, +and thought all black fellows congenital murderers, which indeed they +are in some parts of the north. So Billy sat and waited, for he wanted a +new coat. How could he be respected in one whose natural divisions were +unnaturally extended to the very neck? It was obviously necessary to get +a new garment at once, and the best chance of a good one lay in little +Annie's kindness. But in order to obviate the slightest chance of his +girl patron's refusing, he must bring her some offering. He went off +into the bush at the back of the town, and, coming to where three or +four black fellows were camped, he sat down and talked with them. In +spite of the heat, a wretched old gin, muffled up in her one garment, +a ragged blanket, held her hands over the few burning sticks which +represent an Australian native's idea of a fire. Presently King Billy +rose, and, taking a tomahawk, went farther into the bush. He looked +about, and at last came to a tree, which he climbed native fashion, +first discarding his clothes. When near the first big branches he came +to a hole, and, putting in his hand, he extracted a lively young possum +by the tail. + +Next morning he was sitting on the Colborns' fence as usual. At his +feet was a little box with two or three slats nailed roughly across it. +Inside was the possum. King Billy wondered what kind of a coat he could +get. He liked a frock-coat; there was something majestic about it, +something fine and ample. Common morning coats would not do; no one +would insult a king by offering him tweed; even little Annie knew +better than that, especially if he gave her a live possum he had caught +himself. And when Annie did come out, she was in the seventh heaven of +delight with the possum, and ready to bestow anything in the world on +King Billy. + +"You give poor Billy one fellow coat, missy, and he go down along street +like a king." + +Annie flew into the house and seized the first garment she laid her +little hands on. It was her father's dress-coat. She rolled it up, and, +running out, thrust it excitedly into the king's black paw. As he went +off, she carried the possum indoors, and was deliriously happy for +hours. + +King Billy hurried into the bush till he came to a water-hole, and, +stripping off his rags, he held up the coat. His jaw fell; there was a +remarkable exiguity about the coat which was inexplicable. He had never +observed such in his life. He put it on, and, bending over the surface +of the still pool, took a good look at the general effect. It was not +bad from some points of view, but Billy had his doubts as to whether +he would be received with the respect due to his title if he went into +Ballarat clothed thus. He tried to button it, but discovered that, if it +had ever been intended for buttoning, he could not get it to meet +across his chest. He picked up his discarded frock-coat, which was held +together by the collar; then he felt the stuff of which the dress-coat +was made, and the material pleased him. "Oh, why," asked Billy, "had it +not been made with front tails?" He saw at last that this coat and his +high hat alone were insufficient for civilisation. For full dress in +a corroboree it might do. Unconsciously, he was so wrought upon by the +purpose for which the coat had been built that he determined to reserve +it for parties in the seclusion of the bush, where any merriment could +be rightly checked by a crack from his waddy. He planted it carefully +in a hollow log, and, having inserted himself with as much care into his +discarded rags, he wondered off into the town. He got very intoxicated +that night, and determined to have a party all by himself. + +Now it may seem very annoying, and I confess I find it so myself; but, +having got so far, I don't see my way to tell the rest, even if Annie +Colborn told me the story herself. For after her father's death she +married a man who had a small sheep-station and a hotel not forty miles +from Carabobla, in New South Wales. I stayed there a couple of days when +I was going north to the Murrumbidgee. But though she told me, I cannot +tell it again, at least not in bold, bad print. Still, it will occur +to most that a man of King Billy's sweet and innocent disposition might +very likely create a sensation, when his natural discretion was drowned +in bad whisky, if he ended his solitary corroboree in the moonlight by +going up to Colborn's house in order to deliver a speech of gratitude +through the French windows. + +So Colborn and the king had a corroboree all to themselves in the open +space before the house, while the gold commissioner's guests roared with +laughter to find out where the missing dress-coat was. Next day King +Billy resumed the split frock-coat. + + + + +THY HEART'S DESIRE, By Netta Syrett + + +The tents were pitched in the little plain surrounded by hills. Right +and left there were stretches of tender, vivid green where the young +corn was springing; farther still, on either hand, the plain was yellow +with mustard-flower; but in the immediate foreground it was bare and +stony. A few thorny bushes pushed their straggling way through the dry +soil, ineffectively as far as the grace of the landscape was concerned, +for they merely served to emphasise the barren aridness of the land that +stretched before the tents, sloping gradually to the distant hills. + +The hills were uninteresting enough in themselves; they had no grandeur +of outline, no picturesqueness even, though at morning and evening the +sun, like a great magician, clothed them with beauty at a touch. + +They had begun to change, to soften, to blush rose red in the evening +light, when a woman came to the entrance of the largest of the tents and +looked toward them. She leaned against the support on one side of the +canvas flap, and, putting back her head, rested that, too, against it, +while her eyes wandered over the plain and over the distant hills. + +She was bareheaded, for the covering of the tent projected a few feet to +form an awning overhead. The gentle breeze which had risen with sundown +stirred the soft brown tendrils of hair on her temples, and fluttered +her pink cotton gown a little. She stood very still, with her arms +hanging and her hands clasped loosely in front of her. There was about +her whole attitude an air of studied quiet which in some vague fashion +the slight clasp of her hands accentuated. Her face, with its tightly, +almost rigidly closed lips, would have been quite in keeping with the +impression of conscious calm which her entire presence suggested, had it +not been that when she raised her eyes a strange contradiction to this +idea was afforded. They were large gray eyes, unusually bright and +rather startling in effect, for they seemed the only live thing about +her. Gleaming from her still, set face, there was something almost +alarming in their brilliancy. They softened with a sudden glow of +pleasure as they rested on the translucent green of the wheat-fields +under the broad generous sunlight, and then wandered to where the pure +vivid yellow of the mustard-flower spread in waves to the base of the +hills, now mystically veiled in radiance. She stood motionless, watching +their melting, elusive changes from palpitating rose to the transparent +purple of amethyst. The stillness of evening was broken by the +monotonous, not unmusical creaking of a Persian wheel at some little +distance to the left of the tent. The well stood in a little grove of +trees; between their branches she could see, when she turned her head, +the coloured saris of the village women, where they stood in groups +chattering as they drew the water, and the little naked brown babies +that toddled beside them or sprawled on the hard ground beneath the +trees. From the village of flat-roofed mud houses under the low hill at +the back of the tents, other women were crossing the plain toward the +well, their terra-cotta water-jars poised easily on their heads, casting +long shadows on the sun-baked ground as they came. + +Presently, in the distance, from the direction of the sunlit +hills opposite a little group of men came into sight. Far off, the +mustard-coloured jackets and the red turbans of the orderlies made vivid +splashes of colour on the dull plain. As they came nearer, the guns +slung across their shoulders, the cases of mathematical instruments, +the hammers, and other heavy baggage they carried for the sahib, became +visible. A little in front, at walking pace rode the sahib himself, +making notes as he came in a book he held before him. The girl at the +tent entrance watched the advance of the little company indifferently, +it seemed; except for a slight tightening of the muscles about her +mouth, her face remained unchanged. While he was still some little +distance away, the man with the notebook raised his head and smiled +awkwardly as he saw her standing there. Awkwardness, perhaps, best +describes the whole man. He was badly put together, loose-jointed, +ungainly. The fact that he was tall profited him nothing, for it merely +emphasised the extreme ungracefulness of his figure. His long pale face +was made paler by the shock of coarse, tow-coloured hair; his +eyes, even, looked colourless, though they were certainly the least +uninteresting feature of his face, for they were not devoid of +expression. He had a way of slouching when he moved that singularly +intensified the general uncouthness of his appearance. "Are you very +tired?" asked his wife, gently, when he had dismounted close to the +tent. The question would have been an unnecessary one had it been put +to her instead of to her husband, for her voice had that peculiar flat +toneless sound for which extreme weariness is answerable. + +"Well, no, my dear, not very," he replied, drawling out the words with +an exasperating air of delivering a final verdict, after deep reflection +on the subject. + +The girl glanced once more at the fading colours on the hills. "Come in +and rest," she said, moving aside a little to let him pass. + +She stood lingering a moment after he had entered the tent, as though +unwilling to leave the outer air; and before she turned to follow him +she drew a deep breath, and her hand went for one swift second to her +throat as though she felt stifled. + +Later on that evening she sat in her tent, sewing by the light of the +lamp that stood on her little table. + +Opposite to her, her husband stretched his ungainly length in a +deck-chair, and turned over a pile of official notes. Every now and +then her eyes wandered from the gay silks of the table-cover she was +embroidering to the canvas walls which bounded the narrow space into +which their few household goods were crowded. Outside there was a deep +hush. The silence of the vast empty plain seemed to work its way slowly, +steadily in toward the little patch of light set in its midst. The girl +felt it in every nerve; it was as though some soft-footed, noiseless, +shapeless creature, whose presence she only dimly divined, was +approaching nearer--_nearer_. The heavy outer stillness was in some +way made more terrifying by the rustle of the papers her husband was +reading, by the creaking of his chair as he moved, and by the little +fidgeting grunts and half-exclamations which from time to time broke +from him. His wife's hand shook at every unintelligible mutter from him, +and the slight habitual contraction between her eyes deepened. + +All at once she threw her work down on to the table. "For heaven's +sake--_please_, John, _talk_!" she cried. Her eyes, for the moment's +space in which they met the startled ones of her husband, had a wild, +hunted look, but it was gone almost before his slow brain had time to +note that it had been there--and was vaguely disturbing. She laughed a +little unsteadily. + +"Did I startle you? I'm sorry. I"--she laughed again--"I believe I'm +a little nervous. When one is all day alone--" She paused without +finishing the sentence. The man's face changed suddenly. A wave +of tenderness swept over it, and at the same time an expression of +half-incredulous delight shone in his pale eyes. + +"Poor little girl, are you really lonely?" he said. Even the real +feeling in his tone failed to rob his voice of its peculiarly irritating +grating quality. He rose awkwardly, and moved to his wife's side. + +Involuntarily she shrank a little, and the hand which he had stretched +out to touch her hair sank to his side. She recovered herself +immediately, and turned her face up to his, though she did not raise +her eyes; but he did not kiss her. Instead, he stood in an embarrassed +fashion a moment by her side, and then went back to his seat. + +There was silence again for some time. The man lay back in his chair, +gazing at his big, clumsy shoes as though he hoped for some inspiration +from that quarter, while his wife worked with nervous haste. + +"Don't let me keep you from reading, John," she said, and her voice had +regained its usual gentle tone. + +"No, my dear; I'm just thinking of something to say to you, but I don't +seem--" + +She smiled a little. In spite of herself, her lip curled faintly. "Don't +worry about it; it was stupid of me to expect it. I mean--" she added, +hastily, immediately repenting the sarcasm. She glanced furtively at +him, but his face was quite unmoved; evidently he had not noticed it, +and she smiled faintly again. + +"O Kathie, I knew there was _something_ I'd forgotten to tell you, my +dear; there's a man coming down here. I don't know whether--" + +She looked up sharply. "A man coming _here_? What for?" she interrupted, +breathlessly. + +"Sent to help me about this oil-boring business, my dear." + +He had lighted his pipe, and was smoking placidly, taking long whiffs +between his words. + +"Well?" impatiently questioned his wife, fixing her bright eyes on his +face. + +"Well--that's all, my dear." + +She checked an exclamation. "But don't you know anything about him--his +name? where he comes from? what he is like?" She was leaning forward +against the table, her needle, with a long end of yellow silk drawn +half-way through her work, held in her upraised hand, her whole attitude +one of quivering excitement and expectancy. + +The man took his pipe from his mouth deliberately, with a look of slow +wonder. + +"Why, Kathie, you seem quite anxious. I didn't know you'd be so +interested, my dear. Well,"--another long pull at his pipe,--"his name's +Brook--_Brookfield_, I think." He paused again. "This pipe doesn't draw +well a bit; there's something wrong with it, I shouldn't wonder," he +added, taking it out and examining the bowl as though struck with the +brilliance of the idea. + +The woman opposite put down her work and clinched her hands under the +table. + +"Go on, John," she said, presently, in a tense, vibrating voice; "his +name is Brookfield. Well, where does he come from?" + +"Straight from home, my dear, I believe." He fumbled in his pocket, and +after some time extricated a pencil, with which he began to poke +the tobacco in the bowl in an ineffectual aimless fashion, becoming +completely engrossed in the occupation apparently. There was another +long pause. The woman went on working, or feigning to work, for her +hands were trembling a good deal. + +After some moments she raised her head again. "John, will you mind +attending to me one moment, and answering these questions as quickly as +you can?" The emphasis on the last word was so faint as to be almost as +imperceptible as the touch of exasperated contempt which she could not +absolutely banish from her tone. + +Her husband, looking up, met her clear bright gaze, and reddened like a +school-boy. + +"Whereabouts '_from home_' does he come?" she asked, in a studiedly +gentle fashion. + +"Well, from London, I think," he replied, almost briskly for him, though +he stammered and tripped over the words. "He's a university chap; I used +to hear he was clever; I don't know about that, I'm sure; he used to +chaff me, I remember, but--" + +"Chaff _you_? You have met him then?" + +"Yes, my dear,"--he was fast relapsing into his slow drawl +again,--"that is, I went to school with him; but it's a long time ago. +Brookfield--yes, that must be his name." + +She waited a moment; then, "When is he coming?" she inquired, abruptly. + +"Let me see--to-day's--" + +"_Monday_;" the word came swiftly between her set teeth. + +"Ah, yes--Monday; well," reflectively, "_next_ Monday, my dear." + +Mrs. Drayton rose, and began to pace softly the narrow passage between +the table and the tent wall, her hands clasped loosely behind her. + +"How long have you known this?" she said, stopping abruptly. "O John, +you _needn't_ consider; it's quite a simple question. To-day? Yesterday?" + +Her foot moved restlessly on the ground as she waited. + +"I think it was the day before yesterday," he replied. + +"Then why, in heaven's name, didn't you tell me before?" she broke out, +fiercely. + +"My dear, it slipped my memory. If I'd thought you would be +interested--" + +"Interested!" She laughed shortly. "It _is_ rather interesting to hear +that after six months of this"--she made a quick comprehensive gesture +with her hand--"one will have some one to speak to--some one. It is the +hand of Providence; it comes just in time to save me from--" She checked +herself abruptly. + +He sat staring up at her stupidly, without a word. + +"It's all right, John," she said, with a quick change of tone, gathering +up her work quietly as she spoke. "I'm not mad--yet. You--you must get +used to these little outbreaks," she added, after a moment, smiling +faintly; "and, to do me justice, I don't _often_ trouble you with them, +do I? I'm just a little tired, or it's the heat or--something. No--don't +touch me!" she cried, shrinking back; for he had risen slowly and was +coming toward her. + +She had lost command over her voice, and the shrill note of horror in it +was unmistakable. The man heard it, and shrank in his turn. + +"I'm so sorry, John," she murmured, raising her great bright eyes to his +face. They had not lost their goaded expression, though they were full +of tears. "I'm awfully sorry; but I'm just nervous and stupid, and I +can't bear _any one_ to touch me when I'm nervous." + + + +"Here's Broomhurst, my dear! I made a mistake in his name after all, +I find. I told you _Brookfield_, I believe, didn't I? Well, it isn't +Brookfield, he says; it's Broomhurst." + +Mrs. Drayton had walked some little distance across the plain to meet +and welcome the expected guest. She stood quietly waiting while her +husband stammered over his incoherent sentences, and then put out her +hand. + +"We are very glad to see you," she said, with a quick glance at the +new-comer's face as she spoke. + +As they walked together toward the tent, after the first greetings, she +felt his keen eyes upon her before he turned to her husband. + +"I'm afraid Mrs. Drayton finds the climate trying?" he asked. "Perhaps +she ought not to have come so far in this heat?" + +"Kathie is often pale. You _do_ look white to-day, my dear," he +observed, turning anxiously toward his wife. + +"Do I?" she replied. The unsteadiness of her tone was hardly +appreciable, but it was not lost on Broomhurst's quick ears. "Oh, I +don't think so. I _feel_ very well." + +"I'll come and see if they've fixed you up all right," said Drayton, +following his companion toward the new tent that had been pitched at +some little distance from the large one. + +"We shall see you at dinner then?" Mrs. Drayton observed in reply to +Broomhurst's smile as they parted. + +She entered the tent slowly, and, moving up to the table already laid +for dinner, began to rearrange the things upon it in a purposeless, +mechanical fashion. + +After a moment she sank down upon a seat opposite the open entrance, and +put her hand to her head. + +"What is the matter with me?" she thought, wearily. "All the week I've +been looking forward to seeing this man--_any_ man, _any one_ to take +off the edge of this." She shuddered. Even in thought she hesitated to +analyse the feeling that possessed her. "Well, he's here, and I think I +feel _worse_." Her eyes travelled toward the hills she had been used to +watch at this hour, and rested on them with a vague, unseeing gaze. + +"Tired Kathie? A penny for your thoughts, my dear," said her husband, +coming in presently to find her still sitting there. + +"I'm thinking what a curious world this is, and what an ironical vein +of humour the gods who look after it must possess," she replied, with a +mirthless laugh, rising as she spoke. + +John looked puzzled. + +"Funny my having known Broomhurst before, you mean?" he said doubtfully. + + + +"I was fishing down at Lynmouth this time last year," Broomhurst said at +dinner. "You know Lynmouth, Mrs. Drayton? Do you never imagine you hear +the gurgling of the stream? I am tantalised already by the sound of it +rushing through the beautiful green gloom of those woods--_aren't_ they +lovely? And _I_ haven't been in this burnt-up spot as many hours as +you've had months of it." + +She smiled a little. + +"You must learn to possess your soul in patience," she said, and glanced +inconsequently from Broomhurst to her husband, and then dropped her eyes +and was silent a moment. + +John was obviously, and a little audibly, enjoying his dinner. He sat +with his chair pushed close to the table, and his elbows awkwardly +raised, swallowing his soup in gulps. He grasped his spoon tightly in +his bony hand, so that its swollen joints stood out larger and uglier +than ever, his wife thought. + +Her eyes wandered to Broomhurst's hands. They were well shaped, and, +though not small, there was a look of refinement about them; he had a +way of touching things delicately, a little lingeringly, she noticed. +There was an air of distinction about his clear-cut, clean-shaven face, +possibly intensified by contrast with Drayton's blurred features; and it +was, perhaps, also by contrast with the gray cuffs that showed beneath +John's ill-cut drab suit that the linen Broomhurst wore seemed to her +particularly spotless. + +Broomhurst's thoughts, for his part, were a good deal occupied with his +hostess. + +She was pretty, he thought, or perhaps it was that, with the wide, +dry lonely plain as a setting, her fragile delicacy of appearance was +invested with a certain flower-like charm. + +"The silence here seems rather strange, rather appalling at first, when +one is fresh from a town," he pursued, after a moment's pause; "but I +suppose you're used to it, eh, Drayton? How do _you_ find life here, +Mrs. Drayton?" he asked, a little curiously, turning to her as he spoke. + +She hesitated a second. "Oh, much the same as I should find it anywhere +else, I expect," she replied; "after all, one carries the possibilities +of a happy life about with one; don't you think so? The Garden of Eden +wouldn't necessarily make my life any happier, or less happy, than a +howling wilderness like this. It depends on one's self entirely." + +"Given the right Adam and Eve, the desert blossoms like the rose, in +fact," Broomhurst answered, lightly, with a smiling glance inclusive of +husband and wife; "you two don't feel as though you'd been driven out of +Paradise, evidently." + +Drayton raised his eyes from his plate with a smile of total +incomprehension. + +"Great heavens! what an Adam to select!" thought Broomhurst, +involuntarily, as Mrs. Drayton rose rather suddenly from the table. + +"I'll come and help with that packing-case," John said, rising, in his +turn, lumberingly from his place; "then we can have a smoke--eh! Kathie +don't mind, if we sit near the entrance." + +The two men went out together, Broomhurst holding the lantern, for the +moon had not yet risen. Mrs. Drayton followed them to the doorway, and, +pushing the looped-up hanging farther aside, stepped out into the cool +darkness. + +Her heart was beating quickly, and there was a great lump in her throat +that frightened her as though she were choking. + +"And I am his _wife_--I _belong_ to him!" she cried, almost aloud. + +She pressed both her hands tightly against her breast, and set her +teeth, fighting to keep down the rising flood that threatened to sweep +away her composure. "Oh, what a fool I am! What an hysterical fool of a +woman I am!" she whispered below her breath. She began to walk slowly up +and down outside the tent, in the space illumined by the lamplight, as +though striving to make her outwardly quiet movements react upon the +inward tumult. In a little while she had conquered; she quietly entered +the tent, drew a low chair to the entrance, and took up a book, just as +footsteps became audible. A moment afterward Broomhurst emerged from the +darkness into the circle of light outside, and Mrs. Drayton raised her +eyes from the pages she was turning to greet him with a smile. + +"Are your things all right?" + +"Oh, yes, more or less, thank you. I was a little concerned about a case +of books, but it isn't much damaged fortunately. Perhaps I've some you +would care to look at?" + +"The books will be a godsend," she returned, with a sudden brightening +of the eyes; "I was getting _desperate_--for books." + +"What are you reading now?" he asked, glancing at the volume that lay in +her lap. + +"It's a Browning. I carry it about a good deal. I think I like to have +it with me, but I don't seem to read it much." + +"Are you waiting for a suitable optimistic moment?" Broomhurst inquired, +smiling. + +"Yes, now that you mention it, I think that must be why I am waiting," +she replied, slowly. + +"And it doesn't come--even in the Garden of Eden? Surely the serpent, +pessimism, hasn't been insolent enough to draw you into conversation +with him?" he said, lightly. + +"There has been no one to converse with at all--when John is away, +I mean. I think I should have liked a little chat with the serpent +immensely by way of a change," she replied, in the same tone. + +"Ah, yes," Broomhurst said, with sudden seriousness; "it must be +unbearably dull for you alone here, with Drayton away all day." + +Mrs. Drayton's hand shook a little as she fluttered a page of her open +book. + +"I should think it quite natural you would be irritated beyond endurance +to hear that all's right with the world, for instance, when you were +sighing for the long day to pass," he continued. + +"I don't mind the day so much; it's the evenings." She abruptly checked +the swift words, and flushed painfully. "I mean--I've grown stupidly +nervous, I think--even when John is here. Oh, you have no idea of the +awful _silence_ of this place at night," she added, rising hurriedly +from her low seat, and moving closer to the doorway. "It is so close, +isn't it?" she said, almost apologetically. There was silence for quite +a minute. + +Broomhurst's quick eyes noted the silent momentary clinching of the +hands that hung at her side, as she stood leaning against the support at +the entrance. + +"But how stupid of me to give you such a bad impression of the camp--the +first evening, too!" Mrs. Drayton exclaimed, presently; and her +companion mentally commended the admirable composure of her voice. + +"Probably you will never notice that it _is_ lonely at all," she +continued; "John likes it here. He is immensely interested in his work, +you know. I hope _you_ are too. If you are interested it is all quite +right. I think the climate tries me a little. I never used to be +stupid--and nervous. Ah, here's John; he's been round to the kitchen +tent, I suppose." + +"Been looking after that fellow cleanin' my gun, my dear," John +explained, shambling toward the deck-chair. + +Later Broomhurst stood at his own tent door. He looked up at the +star-sown sky, and the heavy silence seemed to press upon him like an +actual, physical burden. + +He took his cigar from between his lips presently, and looked at the +glowing end reflectively before throwing it away. + +"Considering that she has been alone with him here for six months, she +has herself very well in hand--_very_ well in hand," he repeated. + + + +It was Sunday morning. John Drayton sat just inside the tent, presumably +enjoying his pipe before the heat of the day. His eyes furtively +followed his wife as she moved about near him, sometimes passing close +to his chair in search of something she had mislaid. There was colour +in her cheeks; her eyes, though preoccupied, were bright; there was a +lightness and buoyancy in her step which she set to a little dancing air +she was humming under her breath. + +After a moment or two the song ceased; she began to move slowly, +sedately; and, as if chilled by a raw breath of air, the light faded +from her eyes, which she presently turned toward her husband. + +"Why do you look at me?" she asked, suddenly. + +"I don't know, my dear," he began slowly and laboriously, as was his +wont. "I was thinkin' how nice you looked--jest now--much better, you +know; but somehow,"--he was taking long whiffs at his pipe, as usual, +between each word, while she stood patiently waiting for him to +finish,--"somehow, you alter so, my dear--you're quite pale again, all +of a minute." + +She stood listening to him, noticing against her will the more than +suspicion of cockney accent and the thick drawl with which the words +were uttered. + +His eyes sought her face piteously. She noticed that too, and stood +before him torn by conflicting emotions, pity and disgust struggling in +a hand-to-hand fight within her. + +"Mr. Broomhurst and I are going down by the well to sit; it's cooler +there. Won't you come?" she said at last, gently. + +He did not reply for a moment; then he turned his head aside, sharply +for him. + +"No, my dear, thank you; I'm comfortable enough here," he returned, +huskily. + +She stood over him, hesitating a second; then moved abruptly to the +table, from which she took a book. + +He had risen from his seat by the time she turned to go out, and he +intercepted her timorously. + +"Kathie, give me a kiss before you go," he whispered, hoarsely. "I--I +don't often bother you." + +She drew her breath in deeply as he put his arms clumsily about her; +but she stood still, and he kissed her on the forehead, and touched the +little wavy curls that strayed across it gently with his big, trembling +fingers. + +When he released her, she moved at once impetuously to the open doorway. +On the threshold she hesitated, paused a moment irresolutely, and then +turned back. + +"Shall I--does your pipe want filling, John?" she asked, softly. + +"No, thank you, my dear." + +"Would you like me to stay, read to you, or anything?" + +He looked up at her wistfully. "N-no, thank you; I'm not much of a +reader, you know, my dear--somehow." + +She hated herself for knowing that there would be a "my dear," probably +a "somehow," in his reply, and despised herself for the sense of +irritated impatience she felt by anticipation, even before the words +were uttered. + +There was a moment's hesitating silence, broken by the sound of quick, +firm footsteps without. Broomhurst paused at the entrance, and looked +into the tent. + +"Aren't you coming, Drayton?" he asked, looking first at Drayton's wife +and then swiftly putting in his name with a scarcely perceptible pause. +"Too lazy? But you, Mrs. Drayton?" + +"Yes, I'm coming," she said. + +They left the tent together, and walked some few steps in silence. + +Broomhurst shot a quick glance at his companion's face. + +"Anything wrong?" he asked, presently. + +Though the words were ordinary enough, the voice in which they were +spoken was in some subtle fashion a different voice from that in +which he had talked to her nearly two months ago, though it would have +required a keen sense of nice shades in sound to have detected the +change. + +Mrs. Drayton's sense of niceties in sound was particularly keen, but she +answered quietly, "Nothing, thank you." + +They did not speak again till the trees round the stone well were +reached. + +Broomhurst arranged their seats comfortably beside it. + +"Are we going to read or talk?" he asked, looking up at her from his +lower place. + +"Well, we generally talk most when we arrange to read; so shall we agree +to talk to-day for a change, by way of getting some reading done?" she +rejoined, smiling. "_You_ begin." + +Broomhurst seemed in no hurry to avail himself of the permission; he +was apparently engrossed in watching the flecks of sunshine on Mrs. +Drayton's white dress. The whirring of insects, and the creaking of a +Persian wheel somewhere in the neighbourhood, filtered through the hot +silence. + +Mrs. Drayton laughed after a few minutes; there was a touch of +embarrassment in the sound. + +"The new plan doesn't answer. Suppose you read, as usual, and let me +interrupt, also as usual, after the first two lines." + +He opened the book obediently, but turned the pages at random. + +She watched him for a moment, and then bent a little forward toward him. + +"It is my turn now," she said, suddenly; "is anything wrong?" + +He raised his head, and their eyes met. There was a pause. "I will be +more honest than you," he returned; "yes, there is." + +"What?" + +"I've had orders to move on." + +She drew back, and her lips whitened, though she kept them steady. + +"When do you go?" + +"On Wednesday." + +There was silence again; the man still kept his eyes on her face. + +The whirring of the insects and the creaking of the wheel had suddenly +grown so strangely loud and insistent that it was in a half-dazed +fashion she at length heard her name--"_Kathleen!_" + +"Kathleen!" he whispered again, hoarsely. + +She looked him full in the face, and once more their eyes met in a long, +grave gaze. + +The man's face flushed, and he half rose from his seat with an impetuous +movement; but Kathleen stopped him with a glance. + +"Will you go and fetch my work? I left it in the tent," she said, +speaking very clearly and distinctly; "and then will you go on reading? +I will find the place while you are gone." + +She took the book from his hand, and he rose and stood before her. + +There was a mute appeal in his silence, and she raised her head slowly. + +Her face was white to the lips, but she looked at him unflinchingly; and +without a word he turned and left her. + + + +Mrs. Drayton was resting in the tent on Tuesday afternoon. With the help +of cushions and some low chairs, she had improvised a couch, on which +she lay quietly with her eyes closed. There was a tenseness, however, in +her attitude which indicated that sleep was far from her. + +Her features seemed to have sharpened during the last few days, and +there were hollows in her cheeks. She had been very ill for a long time, +but all at once, with a sudden movement, she turned her head and buried +her face in the cushions with a groan. Slipping from her place, she fell +on her knees beside the couch, and put both hands before her mouth to +force back the cry that she felt struggling to her lips. + +For some moments the wild effort she was making for outward calm, which +even when she was alone was her first instinct, strained every nerve and +blotted out sight and hearing, and it was not till the sound was very +near that she was conscious of the ring of horse's hoofs on the plain. + +She raised her head sharply, with a thrill of fear, still kneeling, and +listened. + +There was no mistake. The horseman was riding in hot haste, for the thud +of the hoofs followed one another swiftly. + +As Mrs. Drayton listened her white face grew whiter, and she began to +tremble. Putting out shaking hands, she raised herself by the arms of +the folding-chair and stood upright. + +Nearer and nearer came the thunder of the approaching sound, mingled +with startled exclamations and the noise of trampling feet from the +direction of the kitchen tent. + +Slowly, mechanically almost, she dragged herself to the entrance, and +stood clinging to the canvas there. By the time she had reached it +Broomhurst had flung himself from the saddle, and had thrown the reins +to one of the men. + +Mrs. Drayton stared at him with wide, bright eyes as he hastened toward +her. + +"I thought you--you are not--" she began, and then her teeth began to +chatter. "I am so cold!" she said, in a little, weak voice. + +Broomhurst took her hand and led her over the threshold back into the +tent. + +"Don't be so frightened," he implored; "I came to tell you first. I +thought it wouldn't frighten you so much as--Your--Drayton is--very ill. +They are bringing him. I--" + +He paused. She gazed at him a moment with parted lips; then she broke +into a horrible, discordant laugh, and stood clinging to the back of a +chair. + +Broomhurst started back. + +"Do you understand what I mean?" he whispered. "Kathleen, for God's +sake--_don't_--he is _dead_." + +He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, her shrill laughter ringing in +his ears. The white glare and dazzle of the plain stretched before him, +framed by the entrance to the tent; far off, against the horizon, there +were moving black specks, which he knew to be the returning servants +with their still burden. + +They were bringing John Drayton home. + + +One afternoon, some months later, Broomhurst climbed the steep lane +leading to the cliffs of a little English village by the sea. He had +already been to the inn, and had been shown by the proprietress the +house where Mrs. Drayton lodged. + +"The lady was out, but the gentleman would likely find her if he went +to the cliffs--down by the bay, or thereabouts," her landlady explained; +and, obeying her directions, Broomhurst presently emerged from the shady +woodland path on to the hillside overhanging the sea. + +He glanced eagerly round him, and then, with a sudden quickening of the +heart, walked on over the springy heather to where she sat. She turned +when the rustling his footsteps made through the bracken was near enough +to arrest her attention, and looked up at him as he came. Then she rose +slowly and stood waiting for him. He came up to her without a word, and +seized both her hands, devouring her face with his eyes. Something he +saw there repelled him. Slowly he let her hands fall, still looking +at her silently. "You are not glad to see me, and I have counted the +hours," he said, at last, in a dull, toneless voice. + +Her lips quivered. "Don't be angry with me--I can't help it--I'm not +glad or sorry for anything now," she answered; and her voice matched his +for grayness. + +They sat down together on a long flat stone half embedded in a wiry +clump of whortleberries. Behind them the lonely hillsides rose, +brilliant with yellow bracken and the purple of heather. Before them +stretched the wide sea. It was a soft, gray day. Streaks of pale +sunlight trembled at moments far out on the water. The tide was rising +in the little bay above which they sat, and Broomhurst watched the lazy +foam-edged waves slipping over the uncovered rocks toward the shore, +then sliding back as though for very weariness they despaired of +reaching it. The muffled, pulsing sound of the sea filled the silence. +Broomhurst thought suddenly of hot Eastern sunshine, of the whir of +insect wings on the still air, and the creaking of a wheel in the +distance. He turned and looked at his companion. + +"I have come thousands of miles to see you," he said; "aren't you going +to speak to me now I am here?" + +"Why did you come? I told you not to come," she answered, falteringly. +"I--" she paused. + +"And I replied that I should follow you--if you remember," he answered, +still quietly. "I came because I would not listen to what you said then, +at that awful time. You didn't know _yourself_ what you said. No wonder! +I have given you some months, and now I have come." + +There was silence between them. Broomhurst saw that she was crying; her +tears fell fast on to her hands, that were clasped in her lap. Her face, +he noticed, was thin and drawn. + +Very gently he put his arm round her shoulder and drew her nearer to +him. She made no resistance; it seemed that she did not notice the +movement; and his arm dropped at his side. + +"You asked me why I had come. You think it possible that three months +can change one very thoroughly, then?" he said, in a cold voice. + +"I not only think it possible; I have proved it," she replied, wearily. + +He turned round and faced her. + +"You _did_ love me, Kathleen!" he asserted. "You never said so in words, +but I know it," he added, fiercely. + +"Yes, I did." + +"And--you mean that you don't now?" + +Her voice was very tired. "Yes; I can't help it," she answered; "it has +gone--utterly." + +The gray sea slowly lapped the rocks. Overhead the sharp scream of a +gull cut through the stillness. It was broken again, a moment afterward, +by a short hard laugh from the man. + +"Don't!" she whispered, and laid a hand swiftly on his arm. "Do you +think it isn't worse for me? I wish to God I _did_ love you!" she cried, +passionately. "Perhaps it would make me forget that, to all intents and +purposes, I am a murderess." + +Broomhurst met her wide, despairing eyes with an amazement which yielded +to sudden pitying comprehension. + +"So that is it, my darling? You are worrying about _that_? You who were +as loyal as--" + +She stopped him with a frantic gesture. + +"Don't! _don't!_" she wailed. "If you only knew! Let me try to tell +you--will you?" she urged, pitifully. "It may be better if I tell some +one--if I don't keep it all to myself, and think, and _think_." + +She clasped her hands tight, with the old gesture he remembered when she +was struggling for self-control, and waited a moment. + +Presently she began to speak in a low, hurried tone: "It began +before you came. I know now what the feeling was that I was afraid to +acknowledge to myself. I used to try and smother it; I used to repeat +things to myself all day--poems, stupid rhymes--_anything_ to keep my +thoughts quite underneath--but I--_hated_ John before you came! We had +been married nearly a year then. I never loved him. Of course you are +going to say, 'Why did you marry him?'" She looked drearily over the +placid sea. "Why _did_ I marry him? I don't know; for the reason that +hundreds of ignorant, inexperienced girls marry, I suppose. My home +wasn't a happy one. I was miserable, and oh--_restless_. I wonder if +men know what it feels like to be restless? Sometimes I think they +can't even guess. John wanted me very badly; nobody wanted me at home +particularly. There didn't seem to be any point in my life. Do you +understand? . . . Of course, being alone with him in that little camp +in that silent plain"--she shuddered--"made things worse. My nerves went +all to pieces. Everything he said, his voice, his accent, his walk, +the way he ate, irritated me so that I longed to rush out sometimes and +shriek--and go _mad_. Does it sound ridiculous to you to be driven mad +by such trifles? I only know I used to get up from the table sometimes +and walk up and down outside, with both hands over my mouth to keep +myself quiet. And all the time I _hated_ myself--how I hated myself! I +never had a word from him that wasn't gentle and tender. I believe he +loved the ground I walked on. Oh, it is _awful_ to be loved like that +when you--" She drew in her breath with a sob. "I--I--it made me sick +for him to come near me--to touch me." She stopped a moment. + +Broomhurst gently laid his hand on her quivering one. "Poor little +girl!" he murmured. + +"Then _you_ came," she said, "and before long I had another feeling +to fight against. At first I thought it couldn't be true that I loved +you--it would die down. I think I was _frightened_ at the feeling; I +didn't know it hurt so to love any one." + +Broomhurst stirred a little. "Go on," he said, tersely. + +"But it didn't die," she continued, in a trembling whisper, "and the +other _awful_ feeling grew stronger and stronger--hatred; no, that is +not the word--_loathing_ for--for--John. I fought against it. Yes," she +cried, feverishly, clasping and unclasping her hands; "Heaven knows I +fought it with all my strength, and reasoned with myself, and--oh, I did +_everything_, but--" Her quick-falling tears made speech difficult. + +"Kathleen!" Broomhurst urged, desperately, "you couldn't help it, you +poor child. You say yourself you struggled against your feelings. You +were always gentle; perhaps he didn't know." + +"But he did--he _did_," she wailed; "it is just that. I hurt him +a hundred times a day; he never said so, but I knew it; and yet I +_couldn't_ be kind to him,--except in words,--and he understood. +And after you came it was worse in one way, for he knew--I _felt_ he +knew--that I loved you. His eyes used to follow me like a dog's, and +I was stabbed with remorse, and I tried to be good to him, but I +couldn't." + +"But--he didn't suspect--he trusted you," began Broomhurst. "He had +every reason. No woman was ever so loyal, so--" + +"Hush!" she almost screamed. "Loyal! it was the least I could do--to +stop you, I mean--when you--After all, I knew it without your telling +me. I had deliberately married him without loving him. It was my own +fault. I felt it. Even if I couldn't prevent his knowing that I hated +him, I could prevent _that_. It was my punishment. I deserved it for +_daring_ to marry without love. But I didn't spare John one pang after +all," she added, bitterly. "He knew what I felt toward him; I don't +think he cared about anything else. You say I mustn't reproach myself? +When I went back to the tent that morning--when you--when I stopped +you from saying you loved me, he was sitting at the table with his head +buried in his hands; he was crying--bitterly. I saw him,--it is terrible +to see a man cry,--and I stole away gently, but he saw me. I was torn +to pieces, but I _couldn't_ go to him. I knew he would kiss me, and I +shuddered to think of it. It seemed more than ever not to be borne that +he should do that--when I knew _you_ loved me." + +"Kathleen," cried her lover, again, "don't dwell on it all so +terribly--don't--" + +"How can I forget?" she answered, despairingly. "And then,"--she lowered +her voice,--"oh, I can't tell you--all the time, at the back of my mind +somewhere, there was a burning wish that he might _die_. I used to lie +awake at night, and, do what I would to stifle it, that thought used to +_scorch_ me, I wished it so intensely. Do you believe that by willing +one can bring such things to pass?" she asked, looking at Broomhurst +with feverishly bright eyes. "No? Well, I don't know. I tried to smother +it,--I _really_ tried,--but it was there, whatever other thoughts I +heaped on the top. Then, when I heard the horse galloping across +the plain that morning, I had a sick fear that it was _you_. I knew +something had happened, and my first thought when I saw you alive and +well, and knew it was _John_, was _that it was too good to be true_. I +believe I laughed like a maniac, didn't I? . . . Not to blame? Why, if +it hadn't been for me he wouldn't have died. The men say they saw him +sitting with his head uncovered in the burning sun, his face buried in +his hands--just as I had seen him the day before. He didn't trouble to +be careful; he was too wretched." + +She paused, and Broomhurst rose and began to pace the little hillside +path at the edge of which they were seated. + +Presently he came back to her. + +"Kathleen, let me take care of you," he implored, stooping toward her. +"We have only ourselves to consider in this matter. Will you come to me +at once?" + +She shook her head sadly. + +Broomhurst set his teeth, and the lines round his mouth deepened. He +threw himself down beside her on the heather. + +"Dear," he urged, still gently, though his voice showed he was +controlling himself with an effort, "you are morbid about this. You +have been alone too much; you are ill. Let me take care of you; I _can_, +Kathleen,--and I love you. Nothing but morbid fancy makes you imagine +you are in any way responsible for--Drayton's death. You can't bring him +back to life, and--" + +"No," she sighed, drearily, "and if I could, nothing would be altered. +Though I am mad with self-reproach, I feel _that_--it was all so +inevitable. If he were alive and well before me this instant, my feeling +toward him wouldn't have changed. If he spoke to me he would say 'my +dear'--and I should _loathe_ him. Oh, I know! It is _that_ that makes it +so awful." + +"But if you acknowledge it," Broomhurst struck in, eagerly, "will you +wreck both of our lives for the sake of vain regrets? Kathleen, you +never will." + +He waited breathlessly for her answer. + +"I won't wreck both our lives by marrying again without love on my +side," she replied, firmly. + +"I will take the risk," he said. "You _have_ loved me; you will love +me again. You are crushed and dazed now with brooding over this--this +trouble, but--" + +"But I will not allow you to take the risk," Kathleen answered. "What +sort of woman should I be to be willing again to live with a man I +don't love? I have come to know that there are things one owes to _one's +self_. Self-respect is one of them. I don't know how it has come to be +so, but all my old feeling for you has _gone_. It is as though it had +burned itself out. I will not offer gray ashes to any man." + +Broomhurst, looking up at her pale, set face, knew that her words were +final, and turned his own aside with a groan. + +"Ah," cried Kathleen, with a little break in her voice, "_don't!_ Go +away, and be happy and strong, and all that I loved in you. I am so +sorry--so sorry to hurt you. I--" her voice faltered miserably; "I--I +only bring trouble to people." + +There was a long pause. + +"Did you never think that there is a terrible vein of irony running +through the ordering of this world?" she said, presently. "It is a +mistake to think our prayers are not answered--they are. In due time we +get our heart's desire--when we have ceased to care for it." + +"I haven't yet got mine," Broomhurst answered, doggedly, "and I shall +never cease to care for it." + +She smiled a little, with infinite sadness. + +"Listen, Kathleen," he said. They had both risen, and he stood before +her, looking down at her. "I will go now, but in a year's time I shall +come back. I will not give you up. You shall love me yet." + +"Perhaps--I don't think so," she answered, wearily. + +Broomhurst looked at her trembling lips a moment in silence; then he +stooped and kissed both her hands instead. + +"I will wait till you tell me you love me," he said. + +She stood watching him out of sight. He did not look back, and she +turned with swimming eyes to the gray sea and the transient gleams of +sunlight that swept like tender smiles across its face. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Stories by English Authors: Orient, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STORIES BY ENGLISH AUTHORS: ORIENT *** + +***** This file should be named 2035.txt or 2035.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/3/2035/ + +Produced by Dagny; John Bickers and David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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