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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e7c7e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62347 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62347) diff --git a/old/62347-0.txt b/old/62347-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 880bbc1..0000000 --- a/old/62347-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11320 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three -Authors, by Various - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three Authors - -Author: Various - -Editor: Ernest Rhys - Catherine Amy Dawson-Scott - -Release Date: June 8, 2020 [EBook #62347] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY-THREE STORIES, TWENTY-THREE AUTHORS *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three Authors - - - - - TWENTY-THREE STORIES - BY - TWENTY AND THREE AUTHORS - - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - NEW YORK MCMXXIV - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - - CONTENTS - - KERFOL Edith Wharton - THE CHINK AND THE CHILD Thomas Burke - THE NOMAD Robert Hichens - THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST W. B. Yeats - THE DRUMS OF KAIRWAN The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston - A LIFE—A BOWL OF RICE L. De Bra - HODGE Elinor Mordaunt - HATTERAS A. W. Mason - THE RANSOM Cutliffe Hyne - THE OTHER Edwin Pugh - THE NARROW WAY R. Ellis Roberts - DAVY JONES’S GIFT John Masefield - THE CALL OF THE HAND Louis Golding - THE SENTIMENTAL MORTGAGE Arthur Lynch - CAPTAIN SHARKEY A. Conan Doyle - VIOLENCE Algernon Blackwood - THE REWARD OF ENTERPRISE Ward Muir - GREAR’S DAM Morley Roberts - THE KING OF Maleka H. De Vere Stacpoole - ALLELUIA T. F. Powys - THE MONKEY’S PAW W. W. Jacobs - THE CREATURES Walter de la Mare - THE TAIPAN W. Somerset Maugham - - - - -KERFOL - -By EDITH WHARTON - - From Xingu and Other Stories, by Edith Wharton. - Copyright, 1917, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. - - - - - 1 - - - - -“You ought to buy it,” said my host; “it’s just the place for a -solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to -own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead -broke, and it’s going for a song—you ought to buy it.” - -It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend -Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under my unsociable -exterior I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity) that I took -his hint one autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friend was motoring -over to Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at a cross-road -on a heath, and said: “First turn to the right and second to the left. -Then straight ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, -don’t ask your way. They don’t understand French, and they would pretend -they did and mix you up. I’ll be back for you here by sunset—and don’t -forget the tombs in the chapel.” - -I followed Lanrivain’s directions with the hesitation occasioned by the -usual difficulty of remembering whether he had said the first turn to -the right and second to the left, or the contrary. If I had met a -peasant I should certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray; -but I had the desert landscape to myself, and so stumbled on the right -turn and walked across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was so -unlike any other avenue I have ever seen that I instantly knew it must -be _the_ avenue. The grey-trunked trees sprang up straight to a great -height and then interwove their pale-grey branches in a long tunnel -through which the autumn light fell faintly. I know most trees by name, -but I haven’t to this day been able to decide what those trees were. -They had the tall curve of elms, the tenuity of poplars, the ashen -colour of olives under a rainy sky; and they stretched ahead of me for -half a mile or more without a break in their arch. If ever I saw an -avenue that unmistakably led to something, it was the avenue at Kerfol. -My heart beat a little as I began to walk down it. - -Presently the trees ended and I came to a fortified gate in a long wall. -Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with other grey -avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed -with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild -shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been -replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood -for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and -letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: “If I wait -long enough, the guardian will turn up and show me the tombs—” and I -rather hoped he wouldn’t turn up too soon. - -I sat down on a stone and lit a cigarette. As soon as I had done it, it -struck me as a puerile and portentous thing to do, with that great blind -house looking down at me, and all the empty avenues converging on me. It -may have been the depth of the silence that made me so conscious of my -gesture. The squeak of my match sounded as loud as the scraping of a -brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the -grass. But there was more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of -littleness, of futile bravado, in sitting there puffing my -cigarette-smoke into the face of such a past. - -I knew nothing of the history of Kerfol—I was new to Brittany, and -Lanrivain had never mentioned the name to me till the day before—but one -couldn’t as much as glance at that pile without feeling in it a long -accumulation of history. What kind of history I was not prepared to -guess: perhaps only that sheer weight of many associated lives and -deaths which gives a majesty to all old houses. But the aspect of Kerfol -suggested something more—a perspective of stern and cruel memories -stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur of darkness. - -Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken with the -present. As it stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables to the -sky, it might have been its own funeral monument. “Tombs in the chapel? -The whole place is a tomb!” I reflected. I hoped more and more that the -guardian would not come. The details of the place, however striking, -would seem trivial compared with its collective impressiveness; and I -wanted only to sit there and be penetrated by the weight of its silence. - -“It’s the very place for you!” Lanrivain had said; and I was overcome by -the almost blasphemous frivolity of suggesting to any living being that -Kerfol was the place for him. “Is it possible that any one could _not_ -see—?” I wondered. I did not finish the thought: what I meant was -undefinable. I stood up and wandered toward the gate. I was beginning to -want to know more; not to _see_ more—I was by now so sure it was not a -question of seeing—but to feel more: feel all the place had to -communicate. “But to get in one will have to rout out the keeper,” I -thought reluctantly, and hesitated. Finally I crossed the bridge and -tried the iron gate. It yielded, and I walked through the tunnel formed -by the thickness of the _chemin de ronde_. At the farther end, a wooden -barricade had been laid across the entrance, and beyond it was a court -enclosed in noble architecture. The main building faced me; and I now -saw that one half was a mere ruined front, with gaping windows through -which the wild growths of the moat and the trees of the park were -visible. The rest of the house was still in its robust beauty. One end -abutted on the round tower, the other on the small traceried chapel, and -in an angle of the building stood a graceful well-head crowned with -mossy urns. A few roses grew against the walls, and on an upper -window-sill I remember noticing a pot of fuchsias. - -My sense of the pressure of the invisible began to yield to my -architectural interest. The building was so fine that I felt a desire to -explore it for its own sake. I looked about the court, wondering in -which corner the guardian lodged. Then I pushed open the barrier and -went in. As I did so, a dog barred my way. He was such a remarkably -beautiful little dog that for a moment he made me forget the splendid -place he was defending. I was not sure of his breed at the time, but -have since learned that it was Chinese, and that he was of a rare -variety called the “Sleeve-dog.” He was very small and golden brown, -with large brown eyes and a ruffled throat: he looked like a large tawny -chrysanthemum. I said to myself: “These little beasts always snap and -scream, and somebody will be out in a minute.” - -The little animal stood before me, forbidding, almost menacing; there -was anger in his large brown eyes. But he made no sound, he came no -nearer. Instead, as I advanced, he gradually fell back, and I noticed -that another dog, a vague rough brindled thing, had limped up on a lame -leg. “There’ll be a hubbub now,” I thought; for at the same moment a -third dog, a long-haired white mongrel, slipped out of a doorway and -joined the others. All three stood looking at me with grave eyes; but -not a sound came from them. As I advanced they continued to fall back on -muffled paws, still watching me. “At a given point, they’ll all charge -at my ankles: it’s one of the jokes that dogs who live together put on -one,” I thought. I was not alarmed, for they were neither large nor -formidable. But they let me wander about the court as I pleased, -following me at a little distance—always the same distance—and always -keeping their eyes on me. Presently I looked across at the ruined -façade, and saw that in one of its empty window-frames another dog -stood: a white pointer with one brown ear. He was an old grave dog, much -more experienced than the others; and he seemed to be observing me with -a deeper intentness. - -“I’ll hear from _him_,” I said to myself; but he stood in the -window-frame, against the trees of the park, and continued to watch me -without moving. I stared back at him for a time, to see if the sense -that he was being watched would not rouse him. Half the width of the -court lay between us, and we gazed at each other silently across it. But -he did not stir, and at last I turned away. Behind me I found the rest -of the pack, with a newcomer added: a small black greyhound with pale -agate-coloured eyes. He was shivering a little, and his expression was -more timid than that of the others. I noticed that he kept a little -behind them. And still there was not a sound. - -I stood there for fully five minutes, the circle about me—waiting, as -they seemed to be waiting. At last I went up to the little golden-brown -dog and stooped to pat him. As I did so, I heard myself give a nervous -laugh. The little dog did not start, or growl, or take his eyes from -me—he simply slipped back about a yard, and then paused and continued to -look at me. “Oh, hang it!” I exclaimed, and walked across the court -toward the well. - -As I advanced, the dogs separated and slid away into different corners -of the court. I examined the urns on the well, tried a locked door or -two, and looked up and down the dumb façade: then I faced about toward -the chapel. When I turned I perceived that all the dogs had disappeared -except the old pointer, who still watched me from the window. It was -rather a relief to be rid of that cloud of witnesses; and I began to -look about me for a way to the back of the house. “Perhaps there’ll be -somebody in the garden,” I thought. I found a way across the moat, -scrambled over a wall smothered in brambles, and got into the garden. A -few lean hydrangeas and geraniums pined in the flower-beds, and the -ancient house looked down on them indifferently. Its garden side was -plainer and severer than the other: the long granite front, with its few -windows and steep roof, looked like a fortress-prison. I walked around -the farther wing, went up some disjointed steps, and entered the deep -twilight of a narrow and incredibly old box-walk. The walk was just wide -enough for one person to slip through, and its branches met overhead. It -was like the ghost of a box-walk, its lustrous green all turning to the -shadowy greyness of the avenues. I walked on and on, the branches -hitting me in the face and springing back with a dry rattle; and at -length I came out on the grassy top of the _chemin de ronde_. I walked -along it to the gate-tower, looking down into the court, which was just -below me. Not a human being was in sight; and neither were the dogs. I -found a flight of steps in the thickness of the wall and went down them; -and when I emerged again into the court, there stood the circle of dogs, -the golden-brown one a little ahead of the others, the black greyhound -shivering in the rear. - -“Oh, hang it—you uncomfortable beasts, you!” I exclaimed, my voice -startling me with a sudden echo. The dogs stood motionless, watching me. -I knew by this time that they would not try to prevent my approaching -the house, and the knowledge left me free to examine them. I had a -feeling that they must be horribly cowed to be so silent and inert. Yet -they did not look hungry or ill-treated. Their coats were smooth and -they were not thin, except the shivering greyhound. It was more as if -they had lived a long time with people who never spoke to them or looked -at them: as though the silence of the place had gradually benumbed their -busy, inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human -lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten -animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them -into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and -weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of -that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? -The dogs knew better: they knew what the house would tolerate and what -it would not. I even fancied that they knew what was passing through my -mind, and pitied me for my frivolity. But even that feeling probably -reached them through a thick fog of listlessness. I had an idea that -their distance from me was as nothing to my remoteness from them. The -impression they produced was that of having in common one memory so deep -and dark that nothing that had happened since was worth either a growl -or a wag. - -“I say,” I broke out abruptly, addressing myself to the dumb circle, “do -you know what you look like, the whole lot of you? You look as if you’d -seen a ghost—that’s how you look. I wonder if there _is_ a ghost here, -and nobody but you left for it to appear to?” The dogs continued to gaze -at me without moving.... - - * * * * * - -It was dark when I saw Lanrivain’s motor lamps at the cross-roads—and I -wasn’t exactly sorry to see them. I had the sense of having escaped from -the loneliest place in the whole world, and of not liking loneliness—to -that degree—as much as I had imagined I should. My friend had brought -his solicitor back from Quimper for the night, and seated beside a fat -and affable stranger I felt no inclination to talk of Kerfol.... - -But that evening, when Lanrivain and the solicitor were closeted in the -study, Madame de Lanrivain began to question me in the drawing-room. - -“Well—are you going to buy Kerfol?” she asked, tilting up her gay chin -from her embroidery. - -“I haven’t decided yet. The fact is, I couldn’t get into the house,” I -said, as if I had simply postponed my decision, and meant to go back for -another look. - -“You couldn’t get in? Why, what happened? The family are mad to sell the -place, and the old guardian has orders——” - -“Very likely. But the old guardian wasn’t there.” - -“What a pity. He must have gone to market. But his daughter——?” - -“There was nobody about. At least I saw no one.” - -“How extraordinary! Literally nobody?” - -“Nobody but a lot of dogs—a whole pack of them—who seemed to have the -place to themselves.” - -Madame de Lanrivain let the embroidery slip to her knees, and folded her -hands on it. For several minutes she looked at me thoughtfully. - -“A pack of dogs—you saw them?” - -“Saw them? I saw nothing else!” - -“How many?” She dropped her voice a little. “I’ve always wondered——” - -I looked at her with surprise: I had supposed the place to be familiar -to her. “Have you never been to Kerfol?” I asked. - -“Oh, yes; often. But never on that day.” - -“What day?” - -“I’d quite forgotten, and so had Hervé, I’m sure. If we’d remembered, we -never should have sent you to-day—but then, after all, one doesn’t half -believe that sort of thing, does one?” - -“What sort of thing?” I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice to the -level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: “I _knew_ there was -something....” - -Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuring smile. -“Didn’t Hervé tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of his was mixed -up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; and some of -them are rather unpleasant.” - -“Yes—but those dogs?” - -“Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasants say -there’s one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; and that -day the keeper and his daughter go off to Morlaix and get drunk. The -women in Brittany drink dreadfully.” She stooped to match a silk; then -she lifted her charming, inquisitive Parisian face. “Did you _really_ -see a lot of dogs? There isn’t one at Kerfol,” she said. - - - - - 2 - - - - -Lanrivain, the next day, hunted out a shabby calf volume from the back -of an upper shelf of his library. - -“Yes—here it is. What does it call itself? _A History of the Assizes of -the Duchy of Brittany._ _Quimper_, 1702. The book was written about a -hundred years later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe the account is -transcribed pretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it’s -queer reading. And there’s a Hervé de Lanrivain mixed up in it—not -exactly my style, as you’ll see. But then he’s only a collateral. Here, -take the book up to bed with you. I don’t exactly remember the details; -but after you’ve read it, I’ll bet anything you’ll leave your light -burning all night!” - -I left my light burning all night, as he had predicted; but it was -chiefly because, till near dawn, I was absorbed in my reading. The -account of the trial of Anne de Cornault, wife of the lord of Kerfol, -was long and closely printed. It was, as my friend had said, probably an -almost literal transcription of what took place in the court-room; and -the trial lasted nearly a month. Besides, the type of the book was very -bad.... - -At first I thought of translating the old record. But it is full of -wearisome repetitions, and the main lines of the story are forever -straying off into side issues. So I have tried to disentangle it, and -give it here in a simpler form. At times, however, I have reverted to -the text because no other words could have conveyed so exactly the sense -of what I felt at Kerfol; and nowhere have I added anything of my own. - - - - - 3 - - - - -It was in the year 16— that Yves de Cornault, lord of the domain of -Kerfol, went to the _pardon_ of Locronan to perform his religious -duties. He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his sixty-second year, -but hale and sturdy, a great horseman and hunter and a pious man. So all -his neighbours attested. In appearance he was short and broad, with a -swarthy face, legs slightly bowed from the saddle, a hanging nose and -broad hands with black hairs on them. He had married young and lost his -wife and son soon after, and since then had lived alone at Kerfol. Twice -a year he went to Morlaix, where he had a handsome house by the river, -and spent a week or ten days there; and occasionally he rode to Rennes -on business. Witnesses were found to declare that during these absences -he led a life different from the one he was known to lead at Kerfol, -where he busied himself with his estate, attended mass daily, and found -his only amusement in hunting the wild boar and water-fowl. But these -rumours are not particularly relevant, and it is certain that among -people of his own class in the neighbourhood he passed for a stern and -even austere man, observant of his religious obligations, and keeping -strictly to himself. There was no talk of any familiarity with the women -on his estate, though at that time the nobility were very free with -their peasants. Some people said he had never looked at a woman since -his wife’s death; but such things are hard to prove, and the evidence on -this point was not worth much. - -Well, in his sixty-second year, Yves de Cornault went to the _pardon_ at -Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had ridden over -pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name was Anne -de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much less great -and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father had -squandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a peasant in his -little granite manor on the moors.... I have said I would add nothing of -my own to this bald statement of a strange case; but I must interrupt -myself here to describe the young lady who rode up to the lych-gate of -Locronan at the very moment when the Baron de Cornault was also -dismounting there. I take my description from a faded drawing in red -crayon, sober and truthful enough to be by a late pupil of the Clouets, -which hangs in Lanrivain’s study, and is said to be a portrait of Anne -de Barrigan. It is unsigned and has no mark of identity but the initials -A. B., and the date 16—, the year after her marriage. It represents a -young woman with a small oval face, almost pointed, yet wide enough for -a full mouth with a tender depression at the corners. The nose is small, -and the eyebrows are set rather high, far apart, and as lightly -pencilled as the eyebrows in a Chinese painting. The forehead is high -and serious, and the hair, which one feels to be fine and thick and -fair, is drawn off it and lies close like a cap. The eyes are neither -large nor small, hazel probably, with a look at once shy and steady. A -pair of beautiful long hands are crossed below the lady’s breast.... - -The chaplain of Kerfol, and other witnesses, averred that when the Baron -came back from Locronan he jumped from his horse, ordered another to be -instantly saddled, called to a young page to come with him, and rode -away that same evening to the south. His steward followed the next -morning with coffers laden on a pair of pack mules. The following week -Yves de Cornault rode back to Kerfol, sent for his vassals and tenants, -and told them he was to be married at All Saints to Anne de Barrigan of -Douarnenez. And on All Saints’ Day the marriage took place. - -As to the next few years, the evidence on both sides seems to show that -they passed happily for the couple. No one was found to say that Yves de -Cornault had been unkind to his wife, and it was plain to all that he -was content with his bargain. Indeed, it was admitted by the chaplain -and other witnesses for the prosecution that the young lady had a -softening influence on her husband, and that he became less exacting -with his tenants, less harsh to peasants and dependents, and less -subject to the fits of gloomy silence which had darkened his widowhood. -As to his wife, the only grievance her champions could call up in her -behalf was that Kerfol was a lonely place, and that when her husband was -away on business at Rennes or Morlaix—whither she was never taken—she -was not allowed so much as to walk in the park unaccompanied. But no one -asserted that she was unhappy, though one servant-woman said she had -surprised her crying, and had heard her say that she was a woman -accursed to have no child, and nothing in life to call her own. But that -was a natural enough feeling in a wife attached to her husband; and -certainly it must have been a great grief to Yves de Cornault that she -bore no son. Yet he never made her feel her childlessness as a -reproach—she admits this in her evidence—but seemed to try to make her -forget it by showering gifts and favours on her. Rich though he was, he -had never been open-handed; but nothing was too fine for his wife, in -the way of silks or gems or linen, or whatever else she fancied. Every -wandering merchant was welcome at Kerfol, and when the master was called -away he never came back without bringing his wife a handsome -present—something curious and particular—from Morlaix or Rennes or -Quimper. One of the waiting-women gave, in cross-examination, an -interesting list of one year’s gifts, which I copy. From Morlaix, a -carved ivory junk, with Chinamen at the oars, that a strange sailor had -brought back as a votive offering for Notre Dame de la Clarté, above -Ploumanac’h; from Quimper, an embroidered gown, worked by the nuns of -the Assumption; from Rennes, a silver rose that opened and showed an -amber Virgin with a crown of garnets; from Morlaix, again, a length of -Damascus velvet shot with gold, bought of a Jew from Syria; and for -Michaelmas that same year, from Rennes, a necklet or bracelet of round -stones—emeralds and pearls and rubies—strung like beads on a fine gold -chain. This was the present that pleased the lady best, the woman said. -Later on, as it happened, it was produced at the trial, and appears to -have struck the Judges and the public as a curious and valuable jewel. - -The very same winter, the Baron absented himself again, this time as far -as Bordeaux, and on his return he brought his wife something even odder -and prettier than the bracelet. It was a winter evening when he rode up -to Kerfol, and, walking into the hall, found her sitting by the hearth, -her chin on her hand, looking into the fire. He carried a velvet box in -his hand and, setting it down, lifted the lid and let out a little -golden-brown dog. - -Anne de Cornault exclaimed with pleasure as the little creature bounded -toward her. “Oh, it looks like a bird or a butterfly!” she cried as she -picked it up; and the dog put its paws on her shoulders and looked at -her with eyes “like a Christian’s.” After that she would never have it -out of her sight, and petted and talked to it as if it had been a -child—as indeed it was the nearest thing to a child she was to know. -Yves de Cornault was much pleased with his purchase. The dog had been -brought to him by a sailor from an East Indian merchantman, and the -sailor had bought it of a pilgrim in a bazaar at Jaffa, who had stolen -it from a nobleman’s wife in China: a perfectly permissible thing to do, -since the pilgrim was a Christian and the nobleman a heathen doomed to -hell-fire. Yves de Cornault had paid a long price for the dog, for they -were beginning to be in demand at the French court, and the sailor knew -he had got hold of a good thing; but Anne’s pleasure was so great that, -to see her laugh and play with the little animal, her husband would -doubtless have given twice the sum. - -So far all the evidence is at one, and the narrative plain sailing; but -now the steering becomes difficult. I will try to keep as nearly as -possible to Anne’s own statements; though toward the end, poor thing.... - -Well, to go back. The very year after the little brown dog was brought -to Kerfol, Yves de Cornault, one winter night, was found dead at the -head of a narrow flight of stairs leading down from his wife’s rooms to -a door opening on the court. It was his wife who found him and gave the -alarm, so distracted, poor wretch, with fear and horror—for his blood -was all over her—that at first the roused household could not make out -what she was saying, and thought she had suddenly gone mad. But there, -sure enough, at the top of the stairs lay her husband, stone dead, and -head foremost, the blood from his wounds dripping down to the step below -him. He had been dreadfully scratched and gashed about the face and -throat, as if with curious pointed weapons; and one of his legs had a -deep tear in it which had cut an artery, and probably caused his death. -But how did he come there, and who had murdered him? - -His wife declared that she had been asleep in her bed, and hearing his -cry had rushed out to find him lying on the stairs; but this was -immediately questioned. In the first place, it was proved that from her -room she could not have heard the struggle on the stairs, owing to the -thickness of the walls and the length of the intervening passage; then -it was evident that she had not been in bed and asleep, since she was -dressed when she roused the house, and her bed had not been slept in. -Moreover, the door at the bottom of the stairs was ajar, and it was -noticed by the chaplain (an observant man) that the dress she wore was -stained with blood about the knees, and that there were traces of small -blood-stained hands low down on the staircase walls, so that it was -conjectured that she had really been at the postern-door when her -husband fell and, feeling her way up to him in the darkness on her hands -and knees, had been stained by his blood dripping down on her. Of course -it was argued on the other side that the blood-marks on her dress might -have been caused by her kneeling down by her husband when she rushed out -of her room; but there was the open door below, and the fact that the -finger-marks in the staircase all pointed upward. - -The accused held to her statement for the first two days, in spite of -its improbability; but on the third day word was brought to her that -Hervé de Lanrivain, a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, had been -arrested for complicity in the crime. Two or three witnesses thereupon -came forward to say that it was known throughout the country that -Lanrivain had formerly been on good terms with the lady of Cornault; but -that he had been absent from Brittany for over a year, and people had -ceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement -were not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherer -suspected of witchcraft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouring -parish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to say -anything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied with -its case, and would have liked to find more proof of Lanrivain’s -complicity than the statement of the herb-gatherer, who swore to having -seen him climbing the wall of the park on the night of the murder. One -way of patching out incomplete proofs in those days was to put some sort -of pressure, moral or physical, on the accused person. It is not clear -what pressure was put on Anne de Cornault; but on the third day, when -she was brought in court, she “appeared weak and wandering,” and after -being encouraged to collect herself and speak the truth, on her honour -and the wounds of her Blessed Redeemer, she confessed that she had in -fact gone down the stairs to speak with Hervé de Lanrivain (who denied -everything), and had been surprised there by the sound of her husband’s -fall. That was better; and the prosecution rubbed its hands with -satisfaction. The satisfaction increased when various dependents living -at Kerfol were induced to say—with apparent sincerity—that during the -year or two preceding his death their master had once more grown -uncertain and irascible, and subject to the fits of brooding silence -which his household had learned to dread before his second marriage. -This seemed to show that things had not been going well at Kerfol; -though no one could be found to say that there had been any signs of -open disagreement between husband and wife. - -Anne de Cornault, when questioned as to her reason for going down at -night to open the door to Hervé de Lanrivain, made an answer which must -have sent a smile around the court. She said it was because she was -lonely and wanted to talk with the young man. Was this the only reason? -she was asked; and replied: “Yes, by the Cross over your Lordships’ -heads.” “But why at midnight?” the court asked. “Because I could see him -in no other way.” I can see the exchange of glances across the ermine -collars under the Crucifix. - -Anne de Cornault, further questioned, said that her married life had -been extremely lonely: “desolate” was the word she used. It was true -that her husband seldom spoke harshly to her; but there were days when -he did not speak at all. It was true that he had never struck or -threatened her; but he kept her like a prisoner at Kerfol, and when he -rode away to Morlaix or Quimper or Rennes he set so close a watch on her -that she could not pick a flower in the garden without having a -waiting-woman at her heels. “I am no Queen, to need such honours,” she -once said to him; and he had answered that a man who has a treasure does -not leave the key in the lock when he goes out. “Then take me with you,” -she urged; but to this he said that towns were pernicious places, and -young wives better off at their firesides. - -“But what did you want to say to Hervé de Lanrivain?” the court asked; -and she answered: “To ask him to take me away.” - -“Ah—you confess that you went down to him with adulterous thoughts?” - -“No.” - -“Then why did you want him to take you away?” - -“Because I was afraid for my life.” - -“Of whom were you afraid?” - -“Of my husband.” - -“Why were you afraid of your husband?” - -“Because he had strangled my little dog.” - -Another smile must have passed around the courtroom: in days when any -nobleman had a right to hang his peasants—and most of them exercised -it—pinching a pet animal’s wind-pipe was nothing to make a fuss about. - -At this point one of the Judges, who appears to have had a certain -sympathy for the accused, suggested that she should be allowed to -explain herself in her own way; and she thereupon made the following -statement. - -The first years of her marriage had been lonely; but her husband had not -been unkind to her. If she had had a child she would not have been -unhappy; but the days were long, and it rained too much. - -It was true that her husband, whenever he went away and left her, -brought her a handsome present on his return; but this did not make up -for the loneliness. At least nothing had, till he brought her the little -brown dog from the East: after that she was much less unhappy. Her -husband seemed pleased that she was so fond of the dog; he gave her -leave to put her jewelled bracelet around its neck, and keep it always -with her. - -One day she had fallen asleep in her room, with the dog at her feet, as -his habit was. Her feet were bare and resting on his back. Suddenly she -was waked by her husband: he stood beside her, smiling not unkindly. - -“You look like my great-grandmother, Juliane de Cornault, lying in the -chapel with her feet on a little dog,” he said. - -The analogy sent a chill through her, but she laughed and answered: -“Well, when I am dead you must put me beside her, carved in marble, with -my dog at my feet.” - -“Oho—we’ll wait and see,” he said, laughing also, but with his black -brows close together. “The dog is the emblem of fidelity.” - -“And do you doubt my right to lie with mine at my feet?” - -“When I’m in doubt I find out,” he answered. “I am an old man,” he -added, “and people say I make you lead a lonely life. But I swear you -shall have your monument if you earn it.” - -“And I swear to be faithful,” she returned, “if only for the sake of -having my little dog at my feet.” - -Not long afterward he went on business to the Quimper Assizes; and while -he was away his aunt, the widow of a great nobleman of the duchy, came -to spend a night at Kerfol on her way to the _pardon_ of Ste. Barbe. She -was a woman of piety and consequence, and much respected by Yves de -Cornault, and when she proposed to Anne to go with her to Ste. Barbe, no -one could object, and even the chaplain declared himself in favour of -the pilgrimage. So Anne set out for Ste. Barbe, and there for the first -time she talked with Hervé de Lanrivain. He had come once or twice to -Kerfol with his father, but she had never before exchanged a dozen words -with him. They did not talk for more than five minutes now: it was under -the chestnuts, as the procession was coming out of the chapel. He said: -“I pity you,” and she was surprised, for she had not supposed that any -one thought her an object of pity. He added: “Call for me when you need -me,” and she smiled a little, but was glad afterward, and thought often -of the meeting. - -She confessed to having seen him three times afterward: not more. How or -where she would not say—one had the impression that she feared to -implicate some one. Their meetings had been rare and brief; and at the -last he had told her that he was starting the next day for a foreign -country, on a mission which was not without peril and might keep him for -many months absent. He asked her for a remembrance, and she had none to -give him but the collar about the little dog’s neck. She was sorry -afterward that she had given it, but he was so unhappy at going that she -had not had the courage to refuse. - -Her husband was away at the time. When he returned a few days later he -picked up the animal to pet it, and noticed that its collar was missing. -His wife told him that the dog had lost it in the undergrowth of the -park, and that she and her maids had hunted a whole day for it. It was -true, she explained to the court, that she had made the maids search for -the necklet—they all believed the dog had lost it in the park. - -Her husband made no comment, and that evening at supper he was in his -usual mood, between good and bad: you could never tell which. He talked -a good deal, describing what he had seen and done at Rennes; but now and -then he stopped and looked hard at her, and when she went to bed she -found her little dog strangled on her pillow. The little thing was dead, -but still warm; she stooped to lift it, and her distress turned to -horror when she discovered that it had been strangled by twisting twice -round its throat the necklet she had given to Lanrivain. - -The next morning at dawn she buried the dog in the garden, and hid the -necklet in her breast. She said nothing to her husband, then or later, -and he said nothing to her; but that day he had a peasant hanged for -stealing a faggot in the park, and the next day he nearly beat to death -a young horse he was breaking. - -Winter set in, and the short days passed, and the long nights, one by -one; and she heard nothing of Hervé de Lanrivain. It might be that her -husband had killed him; or merely that he had been robbed of the -necklet. Day after day by the hearth among the spinning maids, night -after night alone on her bed, she wondered and trembled. Sometimes at -table her husband looked across at her and smiled; and then she felt -sure that Lanrivain was dead. She dared not try to get news of him, for -she was sure her husband would find out if she did: she had an idea that -he could find out anything. Even when a witch-woman who was a noted -seer, and could show you the whole world in her crystal, came to the -castle for a night’s shelter, and the maids flocked to her, Anne held -back. - -The winter was long and black and rainy. One day, in Yves de Cornault’s -absence, some gypsies came to Kerfol with a troop of performing dogs. -Anne bought the smallest and cleverest, a white dog with a feathery coat -and one blue and one brown eye. It seemed to have been ill-treated by -the gypsies, and clung to her plaintively when she took it from them. -That evening her husband came back, and when she went to bed she found -the dog strangled on her pillow. - -After that she said to herself that she would never have another dog; -but one bitter cold evening a poor lean greyhound was found whining at -the castle-gate, and she took him in and forbade the maids to speak of -him to her husband. She hid him in a room that no one went to, smuggled -food to him from her own plate, made him a warm bed to lie on and petted -him like a child. - -Yves de Cornault came home, and the next day she found the greyhound -strangled on her pillow. She wept in secret, but said nothing, and -resolved that even if she met a dog dying of hunger she would never -bring him into the castle; but one day she found a young sheep-dog, a -brindled puppy with good blue eyes, lying with a broken leg in the snow -of the park. Yves de Cornault was at Rennes, and she brought the dog in, -warmed and fed it, tied up its leg and hid it in the castle till her -husband’s return. The day before, she gave it to a peasant woman who -lived a long way off, and paid her handsomely to care for it and say -nothing; but that night she heard a whining and scratching at her door, -and when she opened it the lame puppy, drenched and shivering, jumped up -on her with little sobbing barks. She hid him in her bed, and the next -morning was about to have him taken back to the peasant woman when she -heard her husband ride into the court. She shut the dog in a chest, and -went down to receive him. An hour or two later, when she returned to her -room, the puppy lay strangled on her pillow.... - -After that she dared not make a pet of any other dog; and her loneliness -became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she crossed the court of the -castle, and thought no one was looking, she stopped to pat the old -pointer at the gate. But one day as she was caressing him her husband -came out of the chapel; and the next day the old dog was gone.... - -This curious narrative was not told in one sitting of the court, or -received without impatience and incredulous comment. It was plain that -the Judges were surprised by its puerility, and that it did not help the -accused in the eyes of the public. It was an odd tale, certainly; but -what did it prove? That Yves de Cornault disliked dogs, and that his -wife, to gratify her own fancy, persistently ignored this dislike. As -for pleading this trivial disagreement as an excuse for her -relations—whatever their nature—with her supposed accomplice, the -argument was so absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having -let her make use of it, and tried several times to cut short her story. -But she went on to the end, with a kind of hypnotised insistence, as -though the scenes she evoked were so real to her that she had forgotten -where she was and imagined herself to be re-living them. - -At length the Judge who had previously shown a certain kindness to her -said (leaning forward a little, one may suppose, from his row of dozing -colleagues): “Then you would have us believe that you murdered your -husband because he would not let you keep a pet dog?” - -“I did not murder my husband.” - -“Who did, then? Hervé de Lanrivain?” - -“No.” - -“Who then? Can you tell us?” - -“Yes, I can tell you. The dogs—” At that point she was carried out of -the court in a swoon. - - * * * * * - -It was evident that her lawyer tried to get her to abandon this line of -defence. Possibly her explanation, whatever it was, had seemed -convincing when she poured it out to him in the heat of their first -private colloquy; but now that it was exposed to the cold daylight of -judicial scrutiny, and the banter of the town, he was thoroughly ashamed -of it, and would have sacrificed her without a scruple to save his -professional reputation. But the obstinate Judge—who perhaps, after all, -was more inquisitive than kindly—evidently wanted to hear the story out, -and she was ordered, the next day, to continue her deposition. - -She said that after the disappearance of the old watchdog nothing -particular happened for a month or two. Her husband was much as usual: -she did not remember any special incident. But one evening a pedlar -woman came to the castle and was selling trinkets to the maids. She had -no heart for trinkets, but she stood looking on while the women made -their choice. And then, she did not know how, but the pedlar coaxed her -into buying for herself a pear-shaped pomander with a strong scent in -it—she had once seen something of the kind on a gypsy woman. She had no -desire for the pomander, and did not know why she had bought it. The -pedlar said that whoever wore it had the power to read the future; but -she did not really believe that, or care much either. However, she -bought the thing and took it up to her room, where she sat turning it -about in her hand. Then the strange scent attracted her and she began to -wonder what kind of spice was in the box. She opened it and found a grey -bean rolled in a strip of paper; and on the paper she saw a sign she -knew, and a message from Hervé de Lanrivain, saying that he was at home -again and would be at the door in the court that night after the moon -had set.... - -She burned the paper and sat down to think. It was nightfall, and her -husband was at home.... She had no way of warning Lanrivain, and there -was nothing to do but to wait.... - -At this point I fancy the drowsy court-room beginning to wake up. Even -to the oldest hand on the bench there must have been a certain relish in -picturing the feelings of a woman on receiving such a message at -nightfall from a man living twenty miles away, to whom she had no means -of sending a warning.... - -She was not a clever woman, I imagine; and as the first result of her -cogitation she appears to have made the mistake of being, that evening, -too kind to her husband. She could not ply him with wine, according to -the traditional expedient, for though he drank heavily at times, he had -a strong head; and when he drank beyond its strength it was because he -chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife, at any -rate—she was an old story by now. As I read the case, I fancy there was -no feeling for her left in him but the hatred occasioned by his supposed -dishonour. - -At any rate, she tried to call up her old graces; but early in the -evening he complained of pains and fever, and left the hall to go up to -the closet where he sometimes slept. His servant carried him a cup of -hot wine, and brought back word that he was sleeping and not to be -disturbed; and an hour later, when Anne lifted the tapestry and listened -at his door, she heard his loud regular breathing. She thought it might -be a feint, and stayed a long time barefooted in the passage, her ear to -the crack; but the breathing went on too steadily and naturally to be -other than that of a man in a sound sleep. She crept back to her room -reassured, and stood in the window watching the moon set through the -trees of the park. The sky was misty and starless, and after the moon -went down the night was black as pitch. She knew the time had come, and -stole along the passage, past her husband’s door—where she stopped again -to listen to his breathing—to the top of the stairs. There she paused a -moment, and assured herself that no one was following her; then she -began to go down the stairs in the darkness. They were so steep and -winding that she had to go very slowly, for fear of stumbling. Her one -thought was to get the door unbolted, tell Lanrivain to make his escape, -and hasten back to her room. She had tried the bolt earlier in the -evening, and managed to put a little grease on it; but nevertheless, -when she drew it, it gave a squeak ... not loud, but it made her heart -stop; and the next minute, overhead, she heard a noise.... - -“What noise?” the prosecution interposed. - -“My husband’s voice calling out my name and cursing me.” - -“What did you hear after that?” - -“A terrible scream and a fall.” - -“Where was Hervé de Lanrivain at this time?” - -“He was standing outside in the court. I just made him out in the -darkness. I told him for God’s sake to go, and then I pushed the door -shut.” - -“What did you do next?” - -“I stood at the foot of the stairs and listened.” - -“What did you hear?” - -“I heard dogs snarling and panting.” (Visible discouragement of the -bench, boredom of the public, and exasperation of the lawyer for the -defence. Dogs again! But the inquisitive Judge insisted.) - -“What dogs?” - -She bent her head and spoke so low that she had to be told to repeat her -answer: “I don’t know.” - -“How do you mean—you don’t know?” - -“I don’t know what dogs....” - -The Judge again intervened: “Try to tell us exactly what happened. How -long did you remain at the foot of the stairs?” - -“Only a few minutes.” - -“And what was going on meanwhile overhead?” - -“The dogs kept on snarling and panting. Once or twice he cried out. I -think he moaned. Then he was quiet.” - -“Then what happened?” - -“Then I heard a sound like the noise of a pack when the wolf is thrown -to them—gulping and lapping.” - -(There was a groan of disgust and repulsion through the court, and -another attempted intervention by the distracted lawyer. But the -inquisitive Judge was still inquisitive.) - -“And all the while you did not go up?” - -“Yes—I went up then—to drive them off.” - -“The dogs?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well——?” - -“When I got there it was quite dark. I found my husband’s flint and -steel and struck a spark. I saw him lying there. He was dead.” - -“And the dogs?” - -“The dogs were gone.” - -“Gone—where to?” - -“I don’t know. There was no way out—and there were no dogs at Kerfol.” - -She straightened herself to her full height, threw her arms above her -head, and fell down on the stone floor with a long scream. There was a -moment of confusion in the court-room. Some one on the bench was heard -to say: “This is clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities”—and -the prisoner’s lawyer doubtless jumped at the suggestion. - -After this, the trial loses itself in a maze of cross-questioning and -squabbling. Every witness who was called corroborated Anne de Cornault’s -statement that there were no dogs at Kerfol: had been none for several -months. The master of the house had taken a dislike to dogs, there was -no denying it. But, on the other hand, at the inquest, there had been -long and bitter discussions as to the nature of the dead man’s wounds. -One of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that looked like -bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and the opposing -lawyers hurled tomes of necromancy at each other. - -At last Anne de Cornault was brought back into court—at the instance of -the same Judge—and asked if she knew where the dogs she spoke of could -have come from. On the body of her Redeemer she swore that she did not. -Then the Judge put his final question: “If the dogs you think you heard -had been known to you, do you think you would have recognized them by -their barking?” - -“Yes.” - -“Did you recognize them?” - -“Yes.” - -“What dogs do you take them to have been?” - -“My dead dogs,” she said in a whisper.... She was taken out of court, -not to reappear there again. There was some kind of ecclesiastical -investigation, and the end of the business was that the Judges disagreed -with each other, and with the ecclesiastical committee, and that Anne de -Cornault was finally handed over to the keeping of her husband’s family, -who shut her up in the keep of Kerfol, where she is said to have died -many years later, a harmless mad-woman. - -So ends her story. As for that of Hervé de Lanrivain, I had only to -apply to his collateral descendant for its subsequent details. The -evidence against the young man being insufficient, and his family -influence in the duchy considerable, he was set free, and left soon -afterward for Paris. He was probably in no mood for a worldly life, and -he appears to have come almost immediately under the influence of the -famous M. Arnauld d’Andilly and the gentlemen of Port Royal. A year or -two later he was received into their Order, and without achieving any -particular distinction he followed its good and evil fortunes till his -death some twenty years later. Lanrivain showed me a portrait of him by -a pupil of Philippe de Champaigne: sad eyes, an impulsive mouth and a -narrow brow. Poor Hervé de Lanrivain: it was a grey ending. Yet as I -looked at his stiff and sallow effigy, in the dark dress of the -Jansenists, I almost found myself envying his fate. After all, in the -course of his life two great things had happened to him: he had loved -romantically, and he must have talked with Pascal.... - - - - -THE CHINK AND THE CHILD - -By THOMAS BURKE - - From Limehouse Nights, by Thomas Burke. - Copyright, 1917, by Robert M. McBride and Company. - - -It is a tale of love and lovers that they tell in the low-lit Causeway -that slinks from West India Dock Road to the dark waste of waters -beyond. In Pennyfields, too, you may hear it; and I do not doubt that it -is told in far-away Tai-Ping, in Singapore, in Tokio, in Shanghai, and -those other gay-lamped haunts of wonder whither the wandering people of -Limehouse go and whence they return so casually. It is a tale for tears, -and should you hear it in the lilied tongue of the yellow men, it would -awaken in you all your pity. In our bald speech it must, unhappily, lose -its essential fragrance, that quality that will lift an affair of -squalor into the loftier spheres of passion and imagination, beauty and -sorrow. It will sound unconvincing, a little ... you know ... the kind -of thing that is best forgotten. Perhaps.... - -But listen. - -It is Battling Burrows, the lightning welter-weight of Shadwell, the box -o’ tricks, the Tetrarch of the ring, who enters first. Battling Burrows, -the pride of Ratcliff, Poplar and Limehouse, and the despair of his -manager and backers. For he loved wine, woman and song; and the boxing -world held that he couldn’t last long on that. There was any amount of -money in him for his parasites if only the damned women could be cut -out; but again and again would he disappear from his training quarters -on the eve of a big fight, to consort with Molly and Dolly, and to drink -other things than barley-water and lemon-juice. Wherefore Chuck -Lightfoot, his manager, forced him to fight on any and every occasion -while he was good and a money-maker; for at any moment the collapse -might come, and Chuck would be called upon by his creditors to strip off -that “shirt” which at every contest he laid upon his man. - -Battling was of a type that is too common in the eastern districts of -London; a type that upsets all accepted classifications. He wouldn’t be -classed. He was a curious mixture of athleticism and degeneracy. He -could run like a deer, leap like a greyhound, fight like a machine, and -drink like a suction-hose. He was a bully; he had the courage of the -high hero. He was an open-air sport; he had the vices of a French -decadent. - -It was one of his love adventures that properly begins this tale; for -the girl had come to Battling one night with a recital of terrible -happenings; of an angered parent, of a slammed door.... In her arms was -a bundle of white rags. Now Battling, like so many sensualists, was also -a sentimentalist. He took that bundle of white rags; he paid the girl -money to get into the country; and the bundle of white rags had existed -in and about his domicile in Pekin Street, Limehouse, for some eleven -years. Her position was nondescript; to the casual observer it would -seem that she was Battling’s relief punch-ball—an unpleasant post for -any human creature to occupy, especially if you are a little girl of -twelve, and the place be the one-room household of the lightning -welter-weight. When Battling was cross with his manager ... well, it is -indefensible to strike your manager or to throw chairs at him, if he is -a good manager; but to use a dogwhip on a small child is permissible and -quite as satisfying; at least he found it so. On these occasions, then, -when very cross with his sparring partners, or overflushed with victory -and juice of the grape, he would flog Lucy. But he was reputed by the -boys to be a good fellow. He only whipped the child when he was drunk; -and he was only drunk for eight months of the year. - -For just over twelve years this bruised little body had crept about -Poplar and Limehouse. Always the white face was scarred with red, or -black-furrowed with tears; always in her steps and in her look was -expectation of dread things. Night after night her sleep was broken by -the cheerful Battling’s brute voice and violent hands; and terrible were -the lessons which life taught her in those few years. Yet, for all the -starved face and the transfixed air, there was a lurking beauty about -her, a something that called you in the soft curve of her cheek that -cried for kisses and was fed with blows, and in the splendid -mournfulness that grew in eyes and lips. The brown hair chimed against -the pale face, like the rounding of a verse. The blue cotton frock and -the broken shoes could not break the loveliness of her slender figure or -the shy grace of her movements as she flitted about the squalid alleys -of the docks; though in all that region of wasted life and toil and -decay, there was not one that noticed her, until.... - -Now there lived in Chinatown, in one lousy room over Mr. Tai Fu’s store -in Pennyfields, a wandering yellow man, named Cheng Huan. Cheng Huan was -a poet. He did not realise it. He had never been able to understand why -he was unpopular; and he died without knowing. But a poet he was, tinged -with the materialism of his race, and in his poor listening heart -strange echoes would awake of which he himself was barely conscious. He -regarded things differently from other sailors; he felt things more -passionately, and things which they felt not at all; so he lived alone -instead of at one of the lodging-houses. Every evening he would sit at -his window and watch the street. Then, a little later, he would take a -jolt of opium at the place at the corner of Formosa Street. - -He had come to London by devious ways. He had loafed on the Bund at -Shanghai. The fateful intervention of a crimp had landed him on a boat. -He got to Cardiff, and sojourned in its Chinatown; thence to Liverpool, -to Glasgow; thence, by a ticket from the Asiatics’ Aid Society, to -Limehouse, where he remained for two reasons—because it cost him nothing -to live there, and because he was too lazy to find a boat to take him -back to Shanghai. - -So he would lounge and smoke cheap cigarettes, and sit at his window, -from which point he had many times observed the lyrical Lucy. He noticed -her casually. Another day, he observed her, not casually. Later, he -looked long at her; later still, he began to watch for her and for that -strangely provocative something about the toss of the head and the hang -of the little blue skirt as it coyly kissed her knee. - -Then that beauty which all Limehouse had missed smote Cheng. Straight to -his heart it went, and cried itself into his very blood. Thereafter the -spirit of poetry broke her blossoms all about his odorous chamber. -Nothing was the same. Pennyfields became a happy-lanterned street, and -the monotonous fiddle in the house opposite was the music of his -fathers. Bits of old song floated through his mind: little sweet verses -of Le Tai-pih, murmuring of plum blossom, ricefield and stream. Day by -day he would moon at his window, or shuffle about the streets, lighting -to a flame when Lucy would pass and gravely return his quiet regard; and -night after night, too, he would dream of a pale, lily-lovely child. - -And now the Fates moved swiftly various pieces on their sinister board, -and all that followed happened with a speed and precision that showed -direction from higher ways. - -It was Wednesday night in Limehouse, and for once clear of mist. Out of -the coloured darkness of the Causeway stole the muffled wail of reed -instruments, and, though every window was closely shuttered, between the -joints shot jets of light and stealthy voices, and you could hear the -whisper of slippered feet, and the stuttering steps of the satyr and the -sadist. It was to the café in the middle of the Causeway, lit by the -pallid blue light that is the symbol of China throughout the world, that -Cheng Huan came, to take a dish of noodle and some tea. Thence he moved -to another house whose stairs ran straight to the street, and above -whose doorway a lamp glowed like an evil eye. At this establishment he -mostly took his pipe of “chandu” and a brief chat with the keeper of the -house, for, although not popular, and very silent, he liked sometimes to -be in the presence of his compatriots. Like a figure of a shadowgraph he -slid through the door and up the stairs. - -The chamber he entered was a bit of the Orient squatting at the portals -of the West. It was a well-kept place where one might play a game of -fan-tan, or take a shot or so of _li-un_, or purchase other varieties of -Oriental delight. It was sunk in a purple dusk, though here and there a -lantern stung the gloom. Low couches lay around the walls, and strange -men decorated them: Chinese, Japs, Malays, Lascars, with one or two -white girls; and sleek, noiseless attendants swam from couch to couch. -Away in the far corner sprawled a lank figure in brown shirting, its -nerveless fingers curled about the stem of a spent pipe. On one of the -lounges a scorbutic nigger sat with a Jewess from Shadwell. Squatting on -a table in the centre, beneath one of the lanterns, was a musician with -a reed, blinking upon the company like a sly cat, and making his melody -of six repeated notes. - -The atmosphere churned. The dirt of years, tobacco of many growings, -opium, betel nut, and moist flesh allied themselves in one grand assault -against the nostrils. - -As Cheng brooded on his insect-ridden cushion, of a sudden the lantern -above the musician was caught by the ribbon of his reed. It danced and -flung a hazy radiance on a divan in the shadow. He saw—started—half -rose. His heart galloped, and the blood pounded in his quiet veins. Then -he dropped again,—crouched, and stared. - -O lily-flowers and plum blossoms! O silver streams and dim-starred -skies! O wine and roses, song and laughter! For there, kneeling on a -mass of rugs, mazed and big-eyed, but understanding, was Lucy ... his -Lucy ... his little maid. Through the dusk she must have felt his intent -gaze upon her; for he crouched there, fascinated, staring into the now -obscured corner where she knelt. - -But the sickness which momentarily gripped him on finding in this place -his snowy-breasted pearl passed and gave place to great joy. She was -here; he would talk with her. Little English he had, but simple words, -those with few gutturals, he had managed to pick up; so he rose, the -masterful lover, and, with feline movements, crossed the nightmare -chamber to claim his own. - -If you wonder how Lucy came to be in this bagnio, the explanation is -simple. Battling was in training. He had flogged her that day before -starting work; he had then had a few brandies—not many; some eighteen or -nineteen—and had locked the door of his room and taken the key. Lucy -was, therefore, homeless, and a girl somewhat older than Lucy, so old -and so wise, as girls are in that region, saw in her a possible source -of revenue. So there they were, and to them appeared Cheng. - -From what horrors he saved her that night cannot be told, for her ways -were too audaciously childish to hold her long from harm in such a -place. What he brought to her was love and death. - -For he sat by her. He looked at her—reverently yet passionately. He -touched her—wistfully yet eagerly. He locked a finger in her wondrous -hair. She did not start away; she did not tremble. She knew well what -she had to be afraid of in that place; but she was not afraid of Cheng. -She pierced the mephitic gloom and scanned his face. No, she was not -afraid. His yellow hands, his yellow face, his smooth black hair ... -well, he was the first thing that had ever spoken soft words to her; the -first thing that had ever laid a hand upon her that was not brutal; the -first thing that had deferred in manner towards her as though she, too, -had a right to live. She knew his words were sweet, though she did not -understand them. Nor can they be set down. Half that he spoke was in -village Chinese; the rest in a mangling of English which no distorted -spelling could possibly reproduce. - -But he drew her back against the cushions and asked her name, and she -told him; and he inquired her age, and she told him; and he had then two -beautiful words that came easily to his tongue. He repeated them again -and again: - -“Lucia ... l’il Lucia.... Twelve.... Twelve.” Musical phrases they were, -dropping from his lips, and to the child who heard her name pronounced -so lovingly, they were the lost heights of melody. She clung to him, and -he to her. She held his strong arm in both of hers as they crouched on -the divan, and nestled her cheek against his coat. - -Well ... he took her home to his wretched room. - -“Li’l Lucia, come-a-home ... Lucia.” - -His heart was on fire. As they slipped out of the noisomeness into the -night air and crossed the West India Dock Road into Pennyfields, they -passed unnoticed. It was late, for one thing, and for another ... well, -nobody cared particularly. His blood rang with soft music and the -solemnity of drums, for surely he had found now what for many years he -had sought—his world’s one flower. Wanderer he was, from Tuan-tsen to -Shanghai, Shanghai to Glasgow, Cardiff ... Liverpool ... London. He had -dreamed often of the women of his native land; perchance one of them -should be his flower. Women, indeed, there had been. Swatow ... he had -recollections of certain rose-winged hours in coast cities. At many -places to which chance had led him a little bird had perched itself upon -his heart, but so lightly and for so brief a while as hardly to be felt. -But now—now he had found her in this alabaster Cockney child. So that he -was glad and had great joy of himself and the blue and silver night, and -the harsh flares of the Poplar Hippodrome. - -You will observe that he had claimed her, but had not asked himself -whether she were of an age for love. The white perfection of the child -had captivated every sense. It may be that he forgot that he was in -London and not in Tuan-tsen. It may be that he did not care. Of that -nothing can be told. All that is known is that his love was a pure and -holy thing. Of that we may be sure, for his worst enemies have said it. - -Slowly, softly they mounted the stairs to his room, and with almost an -obeisance he entered and drew her in. A bank of cloud raced to the east -and a full moon thrust a sharp sword of light upon them. Silence lay -over all Pennyfields. With a bird-like movement, she looked up at -him—her face alight, her tiny hands upon his coat—clinging, wondering, -trusting. He took her hand and kissed it; repeated the kiss upon her -cheek and lip and little bosom, twining his fingers in her hair. -Docilely, and echoing the smile of his lemon lips in a way that thrilled -him almost to laughter, she returned his kisses impetuously, gladly. - -He clasped the nestling to him. Bruised, tearful, with the love of life -almost thrashed out of her, she had fluttered to him out of the evil -night. - -“O li’l Lucia!” And he put soft hands upon her, and smoothed her and -crooned over her many gracious things in his flowered speech. So they -stood in the moonlight, while she told him the story of her father, of -her beatings, and starvings and unhappiness. - -“O li’l Lucia.... White Blossom.... Twelve.... Twelve years old!” - -As he spoke, the clock above the Milwall Docks shot twelve crashing -notes across the night. When the last echo died, he moved to a cupboard, -and from it he drew strange things ... formless masses of blue and gold, -magical things of silk, and a vessel that was surely Aladdin’s lamp, and -a box of spices. He took these robes, and, with tender, reverent -fingers, removed from his White Blossom the besmirched rags that covered -her and robed her again, and led her then to the heap of stuff that was -his bed, and bestowed her safely. - -For himself, he squatted on the floor before her, holding one grubby -little hand. There he crouched all night, under the lyric moon, -sleepless, watchful; and sweet content was his. He had fallen into an -uncomfortable posture, and his muscles ached intolerably. But she slept, -and he dared not move nor release her hand lest he should awaken her. -Weary and trustful, she slept, knowing that the yellow man was kind and -that she might sleep with no fear of a steel hand smashing the delicate -structure of her dreams. - -In the morning, when she awoke, still wearing her blue and yellow silk, -she gave a cry of amazement. Cheng had been about. Many times had he -glided up and down the two flights of stairs, and now at last his room -was prepared for his princess. It was swept and garnished, and was an -apartment worthy a maid who is loved by a poet-prince. There was a bead -curtain. There were muslins of pink and white. There were four bowls of -flowers, clean, clear flowers to gladden the White Blossom and set off -her sharp beauty. And there was a bowl of water, and a sweet lotion for -the bruise on her cheek. - -When she had risen, her prince ministered to her with rice and egg and -tea. Cleansed and robed and calm, she sat before him, perched on the end -of many cushions as on a throne, with all the grace of the child -princess in the story. She was a poem. The beauty hidden by neglect and -fatigue shone out now more clearly and vividly, and from the head -sunning over with curls to the small white feet, now bathed and -sandalled, she seemed the living interpretation of a Chinese lyric. And -she was his; her sweet self and her prattle, and her bird-like ways were -all his own. - -Oh, beautifully they loved. For two days he held her. Soft caresses from -his yellow hands and long, devout kisses were all their demonstration. -Each night he would tend her, as might mother to child; and each night -he watched and sometimes slumbered at the foot of her couch. - -But now there were those that ran to Battling at his training quarters -across the river, with the news that his child had gone with a Chink—a -yellow man. And Battling was angry. He discovered parental rights. He -discovered indignation. A yellow man after his kid! He’d learn him. -Battling did not like men who were not born in the same great country as -himself. Particularly he disliked yellow men. His birth and education in -Shadwell had taught him that of all creeping things that creep upon the -earth the most insidious is the Oriental in the West. And a yellow man -and a child. It was ... as you might say ... so ... kind of ... well, -wasn’t it? He bellowed that it was “unnacherel.” The yeller man would go -through it. Yeller! It was his supreme condemnation, his final epithet -for all conduct of which he disapproved. - -There was no doubt that he was extremely annoyed. He went to the Blue -Lantern, in what was once Ratcliff Highway, and thumped the bar, and -made all his world agree with him. And when they agreed with him he got -angrier still. So that when, a few hours later, he climbed through the -ropes at the Netherlands to meet Bud Tuffit for ten rounds, it was Bud’s -fight all the time, and to that bright boy’s astonishment he was the -victor on points at the end of the ten. Battling slouched out of the -ring, still more determined to let the Chink have it where the chicken -had the axe. He left the house with two pals and a black man, and a -number of really inspired curses from his manager. - -On the evening of the third day, then, Cheng slipped sleepily down the -stairs to procure more flowers and more rice. The genial Ho Ling, who -keeps the Canton store, held him in talk some little while, and he was -gone from his room perhaps half-an-hour. Then he glided back, and -climbed with happy feet the forty stairs to his temple of wonder. - -With a push of a finger he opened the door, and the blood froze on his -cheek, the flowers fell from him. The temple was empty and desolate; -White Blossom was gone. The muslin hangings were torn down and trampled -underfoot. The flowers had been flung from their bowls about the floor, -and the bowls lay in fifty fragments. The joss was smashed. The cupboard -had been opened. Rice was scattered here and there. The little straight -bed had been jumped upon by brute feet. Everything that could be smashed -or violated had been so treated, and—horror of all—the blue and yellow -silk robe had been rent in pieces, tied in grotesque knots, and slung -derisively about the table legs. - -I pray devoutly that you may never suffer what Cheng Huan suffered in -that moment. The pangs of death, with no dying; the sickness of the soul -which longs to escape and cannot; the imprisoned animal within the -breast which struggles madly for a voice and finds none; all the agonies -of all the ages—the agonies of every abandoned lover and lost woman, -past and to come—all these things were his in that moment. - -Then he found voice and gave a great cry, and men from below came up to -him; and they told him how the man who boxed had been there with a black -man; how he had torn the robes from his child, and dragged her down the -stairs by her hair; and how he had shouted aloud for Cheng and had vowed -to return and deal separately with him. - -Now a terrible dignity came to Cheng, and the soul of his great fathers -swept over him. He closed the door against them, and fell prostrate over -what had been the resting-place of White Blossom. Those without heard -strange sounds as of an animal in its last pains; and it was even so. -Cheng was dying. The sacrament of his high and holy passion had been -profaned; the last sanctuary of the Oriental—his soul dignity—had been -assaulted. The love robes had been torn to ribbons; the veil of his -temple cut down. Life was no longer possible; and life without his -little lady, his White Blossom, was no longer desirable. - -Prostrate he lay for the space of some five minutes. Then, in his face -all the pride of accepted destiny, he arose. He drew together the little -bed. With reverent hands he took the pieces of blue and yellow silk, -kissing them and fondling them and placing them about the pillow. -Silently he gathered up the flowers, and the broken earthenware, and -burnt some prayer papers and prepared himself for death. - -Now it is the custom among those of the sect of Cheng that the dying -shall present love-gifts to their enemies; and when he had set all in -order, he gathered his brown canvas coat about him, stole from the -house, and set out to find Battling Burrows, bearing under the coat his -love-gift to Battling. White Blossom he had no hope of finding. He had -heard of Burrows many times; and he judged that, now that she was taken -from him, never again would he hold those hands or touch that laughing -hair. Nor, if he did, could it change things from what they were. -Nothing that was not a dog could live in the face of this sacrilege. - -As he came before the house in Pekin Street, where Battling lived, he -murmured gracious prayers. Fortunately, it was a night of thick river -mist, and through the enveloping velvet none could observe or challenge -him. The main door was open, as are all doors in this district. He -writhed across the step, and through to the back room, where again the -door yielded to a touch. - -Darkness. Darkness and silence, and a sense of frightful things. He -peered through it. Then he fumbled under his jacket—found a match—struck -it. An inch of a candle stood on the mantelshelf. He lit it. He looked -around. No sign of Burrows, but ... Almost before he looked he knew what -awaited him. But the sense of finality had kindly stunned him; he could -suffer nothing more. - -On the table lay a dog-whip. In the corner a belt had been flung. Half -across the greasy couch lay White Blossom. A few rags of clothing were -about her pale and slim body; her hair hung limp as her limbs; her eyes -were closed. As Cheng drew nearer and saw the savage red rails that ran -across and across the beloved body, he could not scream—he could not -think. He dropped beside the couch. He laid gentle hands upon her, and -called soft names. She was warm to the touch. The pulse was still. - -Softly, oh, so softly, he bent over the little frame that had enclosed -his friend-spirit, and his light kisses fell all about her. Then, with -the undirected movements of a sleep-walker, he bestowed the rags -decently about her, clasped her in strong arms, and crept silently into -the night. - -From Pekin Street to Pennyfields it is but a turn or two, and again he -passed unobserved as he bore his tired bird back to her nest. He laid -her upon the bed, and covered the lily limbs with the blue and yellow -silks and strewed upon her a few of the trampled flowers. Then, with -more kisses and prayers, he crouched beside her. - -So, in the ghastly Limehouse morning, they were found—the dead child, -and the Chink, kneeling beside her, with a sharp knife gripped in a -vice-like hand, its blade far between his ribs. - -Meantime, having vented his wrath on his prodigal daughter, Battling, -still cross, had returned to the Blue Lantern, and there he stayed with -a brandy tumbler in his fist, forgetful of an appointment at -Premierland, whereby he should have been in the ring at ten o’clock -sharp. For the space of an hour Chuck Lightfoot was going blasphemously -to and fro in Poplar, seeking Battling and not finding him, and -murmuring in tearful tones: “Battling—you dammanblasted Battling—where -are yeh?” - -His opponent was in his corner sure enough, but there was no fight. For -Battling lurched from the Blue Lantern to Pekin Street. He lurched into -his happy home, and he cursed Lucy, and called for her. And finding no -matches, he lurched to where he knew the couch should be, and flopped -heavily down. - -Now it is a peculiarity of the reptile tribe that its members are -impatient of being flopped on without warning. So, when Battling -flopped, eighteen inches of writhing gristle upreared itself on the -couch, and got home on him as Bud Tuffit had done the night before—one -to the ear, one to the throat, and another to the forearm. - -Battling went down and out. - -And he, too, was found in the morning, with Cheng Huan’s love-gift -coiled about his neck. - - - - -THE NOMAD - -By ROBERT HICHENS - - From Snakebite, by Robert Hichens. - Copyright, 1919, by George H. Doran Company. - - - - - 1 - - - - -The fate of Madame Lemaire had certainly not been an ordinary one. She -was French, of Marseilles, as you could tell by her accent, especially -when she said “_C’est bien!_” and had been an extremely coquettish and -lively girl, with a strong will of her own and a passionate love of -pleasure and of town life. From her talk when she was seventeen, you -would have gathered that if she ever moved from Marseilles it would be -to go to Paris. Nothing else would be good enough for her. She felt -herself born to play a part in some great city. - -And yet, at the age of forty, here she was in the desert of Sahara, -keeping an _auberge_ at El-Kelf under the salt mountain! She sometimes -wondered how it had ever come about, when she crossed the court of the -inn, round which mules of customers were tethered in open sheds, or when -she served the rough Algerian wine to farmers from the Tell, or to some -dusty commercial traveller from Batna, in the arbour trellised with -vines that fronted the desert. - -Marie Lemaire, who had been Marie Bretelle, at El-Kelf! Marie Lemaire in -the desert of Sahara attending upon God knows whom: Algerians, Spahis, -camel-drivers, gazelle-hunters! No; it was too much! - -But if you have a “kink” in you, to what may you not come? Marie -Bretelle’s “kink” had been an idiotic softness for handsome faces. - -She wanted to shine in the world, to cut a dash, to go to Paris; or, if -that were impossible, to stay in Marseilles married to some rich city -man, and to give parties, and to get gowns from Madame Vannier, of the -Rue de Cliche, and hats from Trebichot, of the Rue des Colonies, and to -attend the theatres, and to be stared at and pointed out on the -race-course, and—and, in fact, to be the belle of Marseilles. And here -she was at El-Kelf and all because of that “kink” in her nature! - -Lemaire had had a handsome face and been a fine man, stalwart, bold, -muscular, determined. He did not belong to Marseilles, but had come -there to give an acrobatic show in a music-hall; and there Marie -Bretelle had seen him, dressed in silver-spangled tights, and doing -marvellous feats on three parallel bars. His bare arms had lumps on them -like balls of iron, his fair moustaches were trained into points, his -bold eyes were lit with a fire to fascinate women; and—well, Marie -Bretelle ran away with him and became Madame Lemaire. And so she came to -Algiers, where Lemaire had an accident while giving his performance. And -that was the beginning of the Odyssey which had ended at El-Kelf. - -“Fool—fool—fool!” - -Often she said that to herself, as she went about the inn doing her -duties with grains of sand in her hair. - -“Fool—fool—fool!” - -The word was taken by the wind of the waste and carried away to the -desert. - -After his accident Lemaire lost his engagements. Then he lost his looks. -He put on flesh. He ceased to train his moustaches into points. The -great muscles got soft, were covered with flabby fat. Finally he took to -drink. And so they drifted. - -To earn some money he became many things—guide, _concierge_, tout for -“La Belle Fatma.” He had impossible professions in Algiers. And Marie? -Well, it were best not to scrutinise her life too closely under the -burning sun of Africa. Whatever it was, it was not very successful; and -they drifted from Algiers. Where did they go? Where had they not been in -this fiery land? Oran on the Moroccan border had seen them, and the -mosques of Kairouan, windy Tunis, and rock-bound Constantine, laughing -Bougie in its wall by the water, Fort National in the Grande Kabyle. -They had been everywhere. And at last some wind of the desert had blown -them, like poor grains of desert sand, from the bending palms of Biskra -to the mud walls of El-Kelf. - -And here—Gold help them!—for ten years they had been keeping the inn, -“Au Retour du Desert.” - -For ten, long, dry years, and such an inn! Why, at Marseilles they would -have called it—well, one cannot tell what they would have called it on -the Cannebiere! But they would have found a name for it, that is -certain. - -It stood alone, this inn, quite alone in the desert, which at El-Kelf -circles a small oasis in which there is hidden among fair-sized palms a -meagre Arab village. Why the inn should have been built outside of the -oasis, away from the village, I cannot tell you. But so it is. It seems -to be disdainful of the earth houses of the Arabs, to be determined to -have nothing to do with them. And yet there is little reason in its -disdain. - -For it, too, is built on sun-dried earth for the most part, and has only -the ground floor possessed by most of them. It stands facing flat but -not illimitable desert. The road that passes before it winds away to -land where there is water; and from the trellised arbour, but far off, -one can see in the sunshine the sharp, shrill green of crops, grown by -the Spahis whose tented camp lies to the right of the caravan track that -leads over the Col de Sfa to Biskra. - -Far, far along that road one can see from the inn, till its whiteness is -as the whiteness of a thread, and any figures travelling upon it are -less than little dolls, and even a caravan is but a moving dimness -shrouded in a dimness of dust. But towards evening, when the strange -clearness of Africa becomes almost terribly acute, every speck upon the -thread has a meaning to attract the eye, and set the mind at work -asking: - -“What is this that is coming upon the road? Who is this that travels? Is -it a mounted man on his thin horse, with his matchlock pointing to the -sky? Or is it a woman hunched upon a trotting donkey? Or a Nomad on his -camel? Or is it only some poor desert man, half naked in his rags, who -tramps on his bare brown feet along sun-baked track, his hood drawn -above his eyes, his knotted club in his hand?” - -After ten years Madame Lemaire still asked herself such questions in the -arbour of the inn, when business was slack, when her husband was away, -or was lying half drunk upon the bed after an extra dose of absinthe, -and the one-eyed Arab servant, Hadj, was squatting on his haunches in a -corner smoking keef. - -Not that the answer mattered at all to her. She expected nothing of the -road that led from the desert. But her mind, stagnant though it had -become in the solitude of Africa, had to do something to occupy itself. -And so she often stared across the plain, with an aimless “_Je me -demande_” trembling upon her lips, and a hard expression of inquiry in -her dark brown eyes, whose lids were seamed with tiny wrinkles. Perhaps -you will wonder why Madame Lemaire, having once had a passionate love -for pleasure and a strong will of her own, had consented to remain for -ten years in the solitude of El-Kelf, drudging in a miserable _auberge_, -to which few people, and those but poor ones, ever came. - -Circumstances and Robert Lemaire had been too much for her. Both had -been cruel. She was something of a slave to both. Lemaire was an utter -failure, but there lurked within him still, under the waves of absinthe, -traces of the dominating power which had long ago made him a success. - -Madame Lemaire had worshipped him once, had adored his strength and -beauty. They were gone now. He was a wreck. But he was a wreck with -fierceness in it. And command with him had become a habit. And Africa -bids one accept. And so Madame Lemaire had stayed for ten long years -drudging at the inn beside the salt mountain, and staring down the long -white road for the something strange and interesting from the desert -that never, never came. - -And still Lemaire drank absinthe, and cursed and drowsed. For ten long -years! And still Hadj squatted upon his haunches and drugged himself -with keef. And still Madame Lemaire stood under the trellised vine, with -the sand-grains in her hair, and gazed and gazed over the plain. - -And when a black speck appeared far off upon the whiteness of the track, -she watched it till her eyes ached, demanding who, or what, it -was—whether a Spahi on horseback, a woman on her donkey, a Nomad on his -camel, or some dark and half-naked pedestrian of the sands, that -travelled through the sunset glory towards the lonely inn. - -Although Robert Lemaire was a wreck he was not an old man in years, only -forty-five, and the fine and tonic air of the Sahara preserved from -complete destruction. Shaggy and unkept he was, with a heavy bulk of -chest and shoulders, a large, pale face, and the angry and distressed -eyes of the absinthe slave. His hands trembled habitually, and on his -bad days fluttered like leaves. But there was still some force in his -prematurely aged body, still some will in his mind. He was a wreck, but -he was the wreck of one who had been really a man and accustomed to -dominate women. And this he did not forget. - -One evening—it was in May, and the long heats of the desert had already -set in—Lemaire was away from the _auberge_, shooting near the salt -mountain with an acquaintance, a colonist who had a small farm not far -from Biskra, and who had come to spend the night at El-Kelf. This man -had a history. He had once been a hotel-keeper, and had reason to -suspect a guest in his hotel of having guilty intercourse with his wife. - -One night, having discovered beyond possibility of doubt that his -suspicions were well founded, he waited till the hotel was closed, then -made his way to his guest’s room, and put three bullets into him as he -lay asleep in his bed. For this murder, or act of justice, he got only -ten months’ imprisonment. But his business as a hotel-keeper was ruined. -So now he was a small farmer. He was also, perhaps, the only real friend -Lemaire had in Africa, and he came occasionally to spend a night at the -Retour du Desert. - -Upon this evening of May, Madame Lemaire was alone in the inn with the -one-eyed servant Hadj preparing supper for the two sportsmen. The flies -buzzed about under the dusty leaves of the vine, which were unstirred by -any breeze. The crystals upon the flanks of the salt mountain glittered -in the sun that was still fiery, though not far from its declining. - -Upon the dry, earthen walls of the inn and over the stones of the court -round which it was built, the lizards crept, or rested with eager, -glancing patience, as if alert for further movement, but waiting for a -signal. A mule or two stamped in the long stable that was open to the -court, and a skeleton of a white Kabyle dog slunk to and fro searching -for scraps with his lips curled back from his pointed teeth. - -And Madame Lemaire went slowly about her work with the sand-grains in -her hair, and the flies buzzing around her. - -Nothing had happened. Nothing ever did happen at El-Kelf. But for some -mysterious reason Madame Lemaire suddenly felt to-day that her existence -in the desert had become insupportable. It may have been that Africa, -gradually draining away the Frenchwoman’s vitality, had on this day -removed the last little drop of the force that had, till now, enabled -her to face her life, however dully, however wearily. - -It may have been that there was some peculiar and unusual heaviness in -the air that was generally of a feathery lightness. Or the reason may -have been mental, and Africa may have drawn from this victim’s nature, -on this particular day, a grain, small as a grain of sand, of will-power -that was absolutely necessary for the keeping of the woman’s stamina -upon its feet. - -However it was, she felt that she collapsed. She did not cry. She did -not curse. She did not faint, or lie down and stare with desperate eyes -at the vacant dying day. She did not neglect her domestic duties, and -was even now tearing, with a flat key, the cover from some tinned veal -and ham for the evening’s supper. But something within her had abruptly -raised its voice. She seemed to hear it saying: “I can’t bear any more!” -and to know that it spoke the truth. No longer could she bear it: the -African sun on the brown-earth walls, the settling of the sand-grains in -her hair, the movement of the flies about her face, wrinkled prematurely -by the perpetual dry heat and by the desert winds; the brazen sky above -her, the iron land beneath, the silence—like the silence that was before -creation, or the monotonous sounds that broke it; the mule’s stamp on -the stones, the barking of the guard-dogs upon the palm roofs of the -distant houses in the village, the sneering laugh of the jackals by -night, that whining song of Hadj, as he wagged his shaven head over the -pipe-bowl into which he pressed the keef that was bringing him to -madness. - -She could not bear it any more. - -The look in her face scarcely altered. The corners of her mouth, long -since grown grim, did not droop any more than usual. Her thin, hard -hands were steady as they did their dreary work. But the woman who had -resisted somehow during ten terrible years of incomparable monotony -suddenly died within Marie Lemaire, and the girl of Marseilles, Marie -Bretelle, shrieked out in the middle-aged, haggard body. - -“This fate was not meant for me. I cannot bear it any more.” - -Presently the tin which had held the veal and ham was empty, save for -some bits of opaque jelly that still clung round its edges; and Madame -Lemaire went over to the dimly burning charcoal with a dirty old pan in -her hand. - -Marie Bretelle was still shrieking out, but Madame Lemaire must get -ready the supper for her absinthe-soaked husband, and his friend the -murderer from Alfa. - -The sportsmen were late in returning, and Madame Lemaire’s task was -finished before they came. She had nothing more to do, and she came out -to the arbour that looked upon the road. Here there was an old table -stained with the lees of wine. About it stood three or four rickety -chairs. Madame Lemaire sat down—dropped down, rather—on one of these, -laid her arms upon the table, and gazed down the empty road. - -“_Mon Dieu!_” she said to herself. “_Mon Dieu!_” She beat one hand on -the table and said it aloud. - -“_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_” - -She stared up at the vine. The leaves were sandy, and she saw insects -running over them. She watched them. What were they doing? What purpose -could they have? What purpose could anything have? - -Always the hand tapped, tapped upon the table. - -And Marseilles! It was still there by the sea, crowded, gay with life. -This was the time when the life began to grow turbulent. The cascades -were roaring under the lifted gardens, where the beasts roamed in their -cages. The awnings were out over the cafés in that city of cafés. She -could almost see the coloured edges of stuff fluttering in the wind that -came from the arbour and from the Château d’If. There was a sound of -hammering along the sea. They were putting up the bathing sheds for the -season. It would be good to go into the sea. It would cool one. - -A beetle dropped from the vine on to the table, close to the beating -hand. Madame Lemaire started violently. She got up, and went to stand in -the entrance of the arbour. Marseilles was gone now. Africa was there. - -For ten years she had been looking down the road. She looked down it -once more. - -It was the wonderful evening hour when Africa seems to lift itself -toward the light, reluctant to be given to the darkness. Very far one -could see, and with an almost supernatural distinctness. Yet Madame -Lemaire strained her eyes, as people do at dusk when they strive to -pierce a veil of gathering darkness. - -What was coming along the road? - -Her gaze travelled onwards over the hard and barren plain till it -reached the green crops, on and on past the tents of the Spahis’ -encampment, near which rose a trail of smoke into the lucent air; -farther still, farther and farther, until the whiteness narrowed towards -the mountains, and at last was lost to sight. - -And this evening, perhaps because she longed so much for something, for -anything, there was nothing on the road. It was a white emptiness under -the setting sun. - -Then the woman felt frantic, and she beat her hands together, and she -cried aloud: - -“If the Devil himself would only come along the road and ask me to go -from this cursed hole of a place, I’d go with him! I’d go! I’d go!” - -She repeated it shrilly, making wild gestures with her hands towards the -desert. Her face was twisted awry. She looked just then like a desperate -hag of a woman. - -But it was the girl of Marseilles who was crying out in her. It was -Marie Bretelle who was demanding the joys she had flung away in her -youth for the sake of a handsome face. - -“I’d go! I’d go!” - -The shrill cry went up to the setting sun. But no one answered, and -nothing darkened the arid whiteness of the road that wound across the -plain and passed before the inn-door. - - - - - 2 - - - - -Night had fallen when the two sportsmen rode in on mules, tired and -hungry. Hadj came from his keef to take the beasts, Madame Lemaire from -her kitchen to ask if there were any birds for her to cook. Her husband -gave her a string of them, and she turned away from him without a word, -and went back into the house. - -There was nothing odd in this, but something in his wife’s face, seen -only for a moment in the darkness of the court, had startled Lemaire, -and he looked after her as if he were inclined to call her back; then -said to his companion, Jacques Bouvier: - -“Did you see Marie?” - -“Yes. She looks as if she had just stumbled over a jackal,” and he -laughed. - -Lemaire stood for a minute where he was. Then he shouted to Hadj: - -“Hadj! A—Hadj!” - -The one-eyed keef-smoker came. - -“Who has been here to-day?” - -“No one. A few have passed the door, but no one has entered.” - -“Good business!” said Bouvier, shrugging his shoulders. - -“Business!” exclaimed Lemaire, with an oath. “It’s a fine business we do -here. Another ten years, and we shan’t have put by ten sous.” - -“Perhaps that is why madame has such a face to-night!” - -“We’ll see at supper. Now for an absinthe!” - -The two men walked stiffly into the inn, put their guns in a corner, -went into the arbour that fronted the desert, and sat down by the table. - -“Marie!” bawled Lemaire. - -He struck his flabby fist down upon the wood. - -“Marie, the absinthe!” - -Madame Lemaire heard the hoarse shout in the kitchen, and her face went -awry again: - -“I’d go! I’d go!” - -She hissed it under her breath. - -“_Sacré nom de Dieu!_ Marie!” - -“_V’là!_” - -“The devil! What a voice!” said Bouvier in the arbour. - -Lemaire was half turned in his chair. His hands were slightly shaking, -and his large white face, with its angry and distressed eyes, looked -startled. - -“Who was that?” he said, moving in his chair as if he were going to get -up. - -“Who? Your wife!” - -“No, it wasn’t!” - -“Well, then——” - -At this moment there was a clink and a rattle, and Madame Lemaire came -slowly out from the inn, carrying a tray with an absinthe bottle, a -bottle of water, and two thick glasses with china saucers. She set it -down between the two men. Her husband stared at her like one who stares -suspiciously at a stranger. - -“Was that you who called out?” he asked. - -“Of course! Who else should it be? Who ever comes here?” - -“Madame is a bit sick of El-Kelf,” said Bouvier. “That’s what is the -matter.” - -Madame Lemaire compressed her lips tightly and said nothing. - -Her husband looked more suspicious. - -“Why should she be sick of it? She’s done very well with it for ten -years,” he said roughly. - -Madame Lemaire turned away and left the arbour. She was wearing slippers -without heels, and went softly. - -The two men sat in silence, looking at each other. A breath of wind, the -first that had come that day, stole from the desert and rustled the -leaves of the vine above their heads. Lemaire stretched out his -trembling hand to the absinthe bottle. - -“For God’s sake let’s have a drink!” he said. “There’s something about -my wife that’s given my blood a turn.” - -“Beat her!” said Bouvier, pushing forward his glass. “If you don’t beat -them be sure they’ll betray you.” - -His wife’s treachery had set him against all women. Lemaire growled -something inarticulate. He was thinking of the days in Algiers, of their -strange and often disgraceful existence there. Bouvier knew nothing of -that. - -“Come on!” he said. - -And he lifted his glass of absinthe to his lips. - -At supper that night Lemaire perpetually watched his wife. She seemed to -be just as usual. For years there had been a sort of sickly weariness -upon her face. It was there now. For years there had been a dull sound -in her voice. He heard it to-night. For years she had had a poor -appetite. She ate little at supper, had her habitual manner of -swallowing almost with difficulty. Surely she was just as usual. - -And yet she was not—she was not! - -After supper the two men returned to the arbour to smoke and drink, and -Madame Lemaire remained in the kitchen to clear away and wash up. - -“Isn’t there something the matter with my wife?” asked Lemaire, lighting -a thin, black cigar, and settling his loose, bulky body in the small -chair, with his fat legs stretched out, and one foot crossed over the -other. “Or is it that I’m out of sorts to-night? It seems to me as if -she were strange.” - -Bouvier was a small, pinched man, with a narrow face, evenly red in -colour, large ears that stood out from his closely shaven head, and -hot-looking, prominent brown eyes. - -“Perhaps she’s taken with some Arab,” he said. - -“P’f! She’s dropped all that nonsense. The devil! A woman of forty’s an -old woman in Africa.” - -Bouvier spat. - -“Isn’t she?” - -“Oh, don’t ask me about women. Young or old, they’re always calling the -Devil to their elbow.” - -“What for?” - -“To put them up to wickedness. Perhaps your wife’s been calling him -to-night. You look behind her presently, and you may catch a sight of -him. He’s always about where women are.” - -“Ha, ha, ha!” - -Lemaire laughed mirthlessly. - -“D’you think he’d show himself to me?” - -He emptied his glass. Bouvier suddenly looked terrible—looked like the -man who had put three bullets into his sleeping guest. - -“How did I know?” he said. - -He leaned across the table towards Lemaire. - -“How did I know?” he repeated in a low voice. - -“What—when your wife——” - -“Yes. They didn’t let me see anything. They were too sharp. No; it was -one night I saw _him_, with his mouth at her ear, coming in behind her -through the door like a shadow. There!” - -He sat back with his hands on his knees. Lemaire stared at him again. - -Again the wind rustled furtively through the diseased vine-leaves of the -arbour. - -“It was then that I got out my revolver and charged it,” continued -Bouvier, in a less mysterious voice, as of one returned to practical -life. “For I knew she’d been up to some villainy. Pass the bottle!”... - -“Pass the bottle!... Why don’t you pass the bottle?” - -“Pardon!” - -Lemaire pushed the bottle over to his friend. - -“What’s the matter with you to-night?” - -“Nothing. You mean to say ... why d’you talk such nonsense? D’you think -I’m a fool to be taken in by rubbish like that?” - -“Well, then, why did you sit just as if you’d seen him?” - -“I’m a bit tired to-night, that’s what it is. We went a long way. The -wine’ll pull me together.” - -He poured out another glass. - -“You don’t mean to say,” he continued, “you believe in the Devil?” - -“Don’t you?” - -“No.” - -“Why not?” - -“Why not! Why should I? Nobody does—me, I mean. That sort of thing is -all very well for women.” - -Bouvier said nothing, but sat with his arms on the table, staring out -towards the desert. He looked at the empty road just in front of him, -let his eyes travel along until it disappeared into the night. - -“I say, that sort of thing is all very well for women,” repeated -Lemaire. - -“I hear you.” - -“But I want to know whether you don’t think the same.” - -“As you?” - -“Yes; to be sure.” - -“I might have done once.” - -“But you don’t now?” - -“There’s a devil in the desert; that’s certain.” - -“Why?” - -“Because I tell you he came out of the desert to turn my wife wrong.” - -“Then you weren’t joking?” - -“Not I. It’s as true as that I went and charged my revolver, because I -saw what I told you. Here’s Madame coming out to join us.” - -Lemaire shifted heavily and abruptly in his chair. - -“Hallo!” he said, in a brutal tone of voice. “What’s up with you -to-night?” - -As he spoke he stared hard at his wife’s shoulder, just by her ear. - -“Nothing. What are you looking at? There isn’t——” - -She put up her hand quickly to her shoulder and felt over her dress. - -“Ugh!” She shook herself. “I thought you’d seen a scorpion on me.” - -Bouvier, whose red face seemed to be deepening in colour under the -influence of the red Algerian wine, burst out laughing. - -“It wasn’t a scorpion he was looking for,” he exclaimed. His thin body -shook with mirth till his chair creaked under him. - -“It wasn’t a scorpion,” he repeated. - -“What was it, then?” said Madame Lemaire. - -She looked from one man to the other—from the one who was strange in his -laughter, to the other who was even stranger in his gravity. - -“What have you been saying about me?” she said, with a flare-up of -suspicion. - -“Well,” said Bouvier, recovering himself a little, “if you must know, we -were talking about the Devil.” - -The woman stared and gave the table a shake. Some of her husband’s wine -was spilled over it. - -“The Devil take you!” he bawled with sudden fury. - -“I only wish he would!” - -The two men jumped back as if a viper of the sands had suddenly reared -up its thin head between them. - -“I only wish he would!” - -It was Marie Bretelle who had spoken, the girl of Marseilles, who still -lived in the body of Marie Lemaire. But it was Marie Lemaire from whom -the two men shrank away—Marie Lemaire changed, startling, terrible, her -haggard face furious with expression, her thin hands clutching at the -edge of the table, from which the wine-bottle had fallen, to be smashed -at their feet. - -For a moment there was a dead silence succeeding that second shrill cry. -Then Lemaire scrambled up heavily from his chair. - -“What do you mean?” he stammered. “What do you mean?” - -And then she told him, like a fury, and with the words which had surely -been accumulating in her mind, like water behind a dam, for ten years. -She told him what she had wanted, and what she had had. And when at last -she had finished telling him, she stood for a minute, making mouths at -him in silence, as if she still had something to say, some final word of -summing up. - -“Stop that!” - -It was Lemaire who spoke; and as he spoke he thrust out one of his -white, shaking hands to cover that nightmare mouth. But she beat his -hand down, and screamed, with the gesture. - -“And if the Devil himself would come along the road to fetch me from -this cursed place, I’d go with him! D’you hear? I’d go with him! I’d go -with him!” - -When the scream died away, one-eyed Hadj was standing at the entrance to -the arbour. Madame Lemaire felt that he was there, turned round, and saw -him. - -“I’d go with him if he was an Arab,” she said, but almost muttering now, -for her voice had suddenly failed her, though her passion was still -red-hot. “Even the Arabs—they’re better than you, absinthe-soaked, -do-nothing Roumis, who sit and drink, drink——” - -Her voice cracked, went into a whisper, disappeared. She thrust out her -hand, swept the glasses off the table to follow the bottle, turned, and -went out of the arbour softly on her slippered feet. - -And one-eyed Hadj stood there laughing, for he understood French very -well, although he was half mad with keef. - -“She’d go with an Arab!” he repeated. “She’d go with an Arab!” And then -he saw his master. - -The two Frenchmen sat staring at one another across the empty table -under the shivering vine-leaves, which were now stirred continually by -the wind of night. Lemaire’s large face had gone a dusky grey. About his -eyes there was a tinge of something that was almost lead colour. His -loose mouth had dropped, and the lower lip disclosed his decayed teeth. -His hands, laid upon the table as if for support, shook and jumped, were -never still even for a second. - -Bouvier was almost purple. Veins stood out about his forehead. The blood -had gone to his ears and to his eyes. Now he leaned across to Lemaire. - -“Beat her!” he said. “Beat her for that! Hadj heard her. If you don’t -beat her, the Arabs——” - -But before he had finished the sentence Lemaire had got up, with a wild -gesture of his shaking hand, and gone unsteadily into the house. - -That night Madame Lemaire suffered at the hands of her husband, while -Bouvier and Hadj listened in the darkness of the court. - - - - - 3 - - - - -It was drawing towards evening on the following day, and Madame Lemaire -was quite alone in the inn. Hadj had gone to the village for some more -keef, and Lemaire and Bouvier had set out together in the morning for -Batna. - -So she was quite alone. Her face was bruised and discoloured near the -right eye. Her head ached. She felt immensely listless. To-day there was -no activity in her misery. It seemed a slow-witted, lethargic thing, -undeserving even of respect. - -There were no customers. There was nothing to do, absolutely nothing. -She went heavily into the arbour, and sank down upon a chair. At first -she sat upright. But presently she spread her arms out upon the table, -and laid her discoloured face on them, and remained so for a long time. - -Any traveller, passing by on the road from the desert, would have -thought that she was asleep. But she was not asleep. Nor had she slept -all night. It is not easy to sleep after such punishment as she had -received. - -And no traveller passed by. - -The flies, finding that the woman kept quite still, settled upon her -face, her hair, her hands, cleaned themselves, stretched their legs and -wings, went to and fro busily upon her. She never moved to drive them -away. - -She was not thinking just then. She was only feeling—feeling how she was -alone, feeling that this enormous sun-dried land was about her, -stretching away to right and left of her, behind her and before, feeling -that in all this enormous, sun-dried land there was nobody who wanted -her, nobody thinking of her, nobody coming towards her to take her away -into a different life, into a life that she could bear. - -All this she was dully feeling. - -Perfectly still were the diseased vine-leaves above her head, motionless -as she was. On them the insects went to and fro, actively leading their -mysterious lives, as the flies went to and fro on her. - -For a long time she remained thus. All the white road was empty before -her as far as eye could see. No trail of smoke went up by the growing -crops beside the distant tents of the Spahis. It seemed as if man had -abandoned Africa, leaving only one of God’s creatures there, this woman -who leaned across the discoloured table with her bruised face hidden on -her arms. - -The hour before sunset approached, the miraculous hour of the day, when -Africa seems to lift itself towards the light that will soon desert it, -as if it could not bear to let the glory go, as if it would not consent -to be hidden in the night. Upon the salt mountain the crystals -glittered. - -The details of the land began to live as they had not lived all day. The -wonderful clearness came, in which all things seem filled with -supernatural meaning. And, even in the dullness of her misery, habit -took hold of Madame Lemaire. - -She lifted her head from her arms, and she stared down the long white -road. Her gaze travelled. It started from the patch of glaring white -before the arbour, and it went away like one who goes to a tryst. It -went down the road, and on, and on. It reached the green of the crops. -It passed the Spahis’ tents. It moved towards the distant mountains that -hid the plains and the palms of Biskra. - -The flies buzzed into the air. - -Madame Lemaire had got up from her seat. With her hands laid flat upon -the table she stared at the thread of white that was the limit of her -vision. Then she lifted her hands and curved them, and put them above -her eyes to form a shade. And then she moved and came out to the -entrance of the arbour. - -She had seen a black speck upon the road. - -There was dust around it. As so often before she asked herself the -question: “Who is it coming towards the inn from the desert?” But to-day -she asked herself the question as she had never asked it before, with a -sort of violence, with a passionate eagerness, with a leaping -expectation. And she stepped right out into the road, as if she would go -and meet the traveller, would hasten with stretched-out hands as to some -welcome friend. - -The sun dropped its burning rays upon her hair, and she realised her -folly, took her hands from her eyes, and laughed to herself. Then she -went back to the arbour and stood by the table waiting. Slowly—very -slowly it seemed to Madame Lemaire—the black speck grew larger on the -white. But there was very much dust to-day, and always the misty cloud -was round it, stirred up by—was it a camel’s padding feet, or the hoofs -of a horse, or—? She could not tell yet, but soon she would be able to -tell. - -Now it was approaching the watered land, was not far from the Spahis’ -tents. And a great fear came upon her that it might turn aside to them, -that it might be perhaps a Spahi riding home from his patrol of the -desert. She felt that she could not bear to be alone any longer; that if -she could not see and speak to someone before sunset she must go mad. - -The traveller passed before the Spahis’ camp without turning aside; and -now the dust was less, and Madame Lemaire could see that it was a Nomad -mounted on a camel. - -With a smothered exclamation she hurried into the inn. A sudden resolve -possessed her. She would prepare a couscous. And then, if the Nomad -desired to pass on without entering the inn, she would detain him. - -She would offer him a couscous for nothing, only she must have company. -Whoever the stranger was, however poor, however filthy, ragged, hideous, -or even terrible, he must stay a while at the inn, distract her thoughts -for an instant. - -Without that she would go mad. - -Quickly she began her preparations. There was time. He could not be here -for twenty minutes yet, and the meal for a couscous was all ready. She -had only to—— - -She moved frantically about the kitchen. - -Twenty minutes later she heard the peevish roar of a camel from the -road, and ran out to meet the Nomad, carrying the couscous. As she came -into the arbour she noticed that it was already dark outside. - -The night had fallen suddenly. - - * * * * * - -That night, as Lemaire and Bouvier were nearing the inn, riding slowly -upon their mules, they heard before them in the darkness the angry -snarling of a camel. - -Almost immediately it died away. - -“Madame has company,” said Bouvier. “There’s a customer at the Retour du -Desert.” - -“Some damned Arab!” said Lemaire. “Come for a coffee or a couscous. Much -good that’ll do us!” - -They rode on in silence. When they reached the inn, the road before it -was empty. - -“_Mai foi_,” said Bouvier. “Nobody here! The camel was getting up, then, -and Madame is alone again.” - -“Marie!” called Lemaire. “Marie! The absinthe!” - -There was no reply. - -“Marie! _Nom d’un chien!_ Marie! The absinthe! Marie!” - -He let his heavy body down from the mule. - -“Where the devil is she? Marie! Marie!” - -He went into the arbour, stumbled over something, and uttered a curse. - -In reply to it there was a shrill and prolonged howl from the court. - -“What is it? What’s the dog up to?” said Bouvier, whipping out his -revolver and following Lemaire. “The table knocked over! What’s up? -D’you think there’s anything wrong?” - -The Kabyle dog howled again, slunk into the arbour from the court, and -pressed itself against Lemaire’s legs. He gave it a kick in the ribs -that sent it yelping into the night. - -“Marie! Marie!” - -There was the anger of alarm in his voice now; but no one answered his -call. - -Walking furtively, the two men passed through the doorway into the -kitchen. Lemaire struck a match, lit a candle, took it in his hand, and -they searched the inn, and the court, then returned to the arbour. In -the arbour, close to the overturned table, they found a broken bowl, -with a couscous scattered over the earth beside it. Several vine-leaves -were trodden into the ground near by. - -“Someone’s been here,” said Lemaire, staring at Bouvier in the -candlelight, which flickered in his angry and distressed eyes. -“Someone’s been. She was bringing him a couscous. See here!” - -He pointed with his foot. - -Bouvier laughed uneasily. - -“Perhaps,” he said—“perhaps it was the Devil come for her. You remember! -She said last night, if he came, she’d go with him.” - -The candle dropped from Lemaire’s shaking hand. - -“Damn you! Why d’you talk like that?” he exclaimed furiously. “She must -be somewhere about. Let’s have an absinthe. Perhaps she’s gone to the -village.” - -They had an absinthe and searched once more. - -Presently Hadj, who was half mad with keef, joined them. The rumour of -what was going forward had got about in the village; and other Arabs -glided noiselessly through the night to share in the absinthe and the -quest, for that night Lemaire forgot to lock up the bottle. - - * * * * * - -But the hostess of the inn at El-Kelf has not been seen again. - - - - -THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST - -By W. B. YEATS - - From The Secret Rose, by W. B. Yeats. - Copyright, 1914, by the Macmillan Company. - - -A man, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked along -the road that wound from the south to the Town of the Shelly River. Many -called him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift, -Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured -doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of the -blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold; but his -eating and sleeping places were the four provinces of Eri, and his -abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. His eyes strayed from -the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the town battlements to a row of -crosses which stood out against the sky upon a hill a little to the -eastward of the town, and he clenched his fist, and shook it at the -crosses. He knew they were not empty, for the birds were fluttering -about them; and he thought, how, as like as not, just such another -vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them; and he muttered; “If it -were hanging or bow-stringing, or stoning or beheading, it would be bad -enough. But to have the birds pecking your eyes and the wolves eating -your feet! I would that the red wind of the Druids had withered in his -cradle the soldier of Dathi, who brought the tree of death out of -barbarous lands, or that the lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot -of the mountain, had smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by -the green-haired and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep -sea.” - -While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came out -upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many crosses. -He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate, and then round -by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was studded with great -nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the lay brother who was the -porter, and of him he asked a place in the guest-house. Then the lay -brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, and led the way to a big and -naked outhouse strewn with dirty rushes: and lighted a rush-candle fixed -between two of the stones of the wall, and set the glowing turf upon the -hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed -him a blanket hanging from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and -a jug of water, and a tub in a far corner. Then the lay brother left him -and went back to his place by the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac -began to blow upon the glowing turf, that he might light the two sods -and the wisp of straw; but his blowing profited him nothing, for the -sods and the straw were damp. So he took off his pointed shoes, and drew -the tub out of the corner with the thought of washing the dust of the -highway from his feet; but the water was so dirty that he could not see -the bottom. He was very hungry, for he had not eaten all that day; so he -did not waste much anger upon the tub, but took up the black loaf, and -bit into it, and then spat out the bite, for the bread was hard and -mouldy. Still he did not give way to his wrath, for he had not drunken -these many hours; having a hope of heath beer or wine at his day’s end, -he had left the brooks untasted, to make his supper the more delightful. -Now he put the jug to his lips, but he flung it from him straightway, -for the water was bitter and ill-smelling. Then he gave the jug a kick, -so that it broke against the opposite wall, and he took down the blanket -to wrap it about him for the night. But no sooner did he touch it than -it was alive with skipping fleas. At this, beside himself with anger, he -rushed to the door of the guest-house, but the lay brother, being well -accustomed to such outcries, had locked it on the outside; so Cumhal -emptied the tub and began to beat the door with it, till the lay brother -came to the door, and asked what ailed him, and why he woke him out of -sleep. “What ails me!” shouted Cumhal, “are not the sods as wet as the -sands of the Three Headlands? and are not the fleas in the blanket as -many as the waves of the sea and as lively? and is not the bread as hard -as the heart of a lay brother who has forgotten God? and is not the -water in the jug as bitter and as ill-smelling as his soul? and is not -the foot-water the colour that shall be upon him when he has been -charred in the Undying Fires?” The lay brother saw that the lock was -fast, and went back to his niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with -comfort. And Cumhal went on beating at the door, and presently he heard -the lay brother’s foot once more, and cried out at him, “O cowardly and -tyrannous race of friars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, -haters of life and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the -truth! O race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with -deceit!” - -“Gleeman,” said the lay brother, “I also make rhymes; I make many while -I sit in my niche by the door, and I sorrow to hear the bards railing -upon the friars. Brother, I would sleep, and therefore I make known to -you that it is the head of the monastery, our gracious Coarb, who orders -all things concerning the lodging of travellers.” - -“You may sleep,” said Cumhal, “I will sing a bard’s curse on the Coarb.” -And he set the tub outside down under the window, and stood upon it, and -began to sing in a very loud voice. The singing awoke the Coarb, so that -he sat up in bed and blew a silver whistle until the lay brother came to -him. “I cannot get a wink of sleep with that noise,” said the Coarb. -“What is happening?” - -“It is a gleeman,” said the lay brother, “who complains of the sods, of -the bread, of the water in the jug, of the foot-water, and of the -blanket. And now he is singing a bard’s curse upon you, O brother Coarb, -and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather and your -grandmother, and upon all your relations.” - -“Is he cursing in rhyme?” - -“He is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of his -curse.” - -The Coarb pulled his night-cap off and crumpled it in his hands, and the -circular brown patch of hair in the middle of his bald head looked like -an island in the midst of a pond, for in Connaught they had not yet -abandoned the ancient tonsure for the style then coming into use. “If we -do not somewhat,” he said, “he will teach his curses to the children in -the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and to the robbers on -the mountain of Gulben.” - -“Shall I go then,” said the other, “and give him dry sods, a fresh loaf, -clean water in a jug, clean foot-water, and a new blanket, and make him -swear by the blessed St. Benignus, and by the sun and moon, that no bond -be lacking, not to tell his rhymes to the children in the street, and -the girls spinning at the doors, and the robbers on the mountain of -Gulben?” - -“Neither our blessed Patron nor the sun and the moon would avail at -all,” said the Coarb: “for to-morrow or the next day the mood to curse -would come upon him, or a pride in those rhymes would move him, and he -would teach his lines to the children, and the girls, and the robbers. -Or else he would tell another of his craft how he fared in the -guest-house, and he in his turn would begin to curse, and my name would -wither. For learn there is no steadfastness of purpose upon the roads, -but only under roofs, and between four walls. Therefore I bid you go and -awaken Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, Brother Bald -Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother Peter. And they -shall take the man, and bind him with ropes, and dip him in the river -that he may cease to sing. And in the morning, lest this but make him -curse the louder, we will crucify him.” - -“The crosses are all full,” said the lay brother. - -“Then we must make another cross. If we do not make an end of him -another will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like him are -going about the world? Ill should we stand before blessed St. Benignus, -and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at the Last Day, -were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under our thumb! -Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever cursing and -ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate in all things, -and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the Son of Lir, and -Angus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana the Mother, and all the -false gods of the old days; always making poems in praise of those kings -and queens of the demons, Finvaragh of the Hill in the Plain, and Red -Aodh of the Hill of the Shee, and Cleena of the Wave, and Eiveen of the -Grey Rock, and him they call Don of the Vats of the Sea; and railing -against God and Christ and the blessed Saints.” While he was speaking he -crossed himself, and when he had finished he drew the night-cap over his -ears, to shut out the noise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself -to sleep. - -The lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, -Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother -Peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. Then they bound -Cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him in at the -place which was afterwards called Buckley’s Ford. - -“Gleeman,” said the lay brother, as they led him back to the -guest-house, “why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to -make blasphemous and immoral tales and verses? For such is the way of -your craft. I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by -rote, and so I know that I speak true! And why do you praise with rhyme -those demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Eiveen and Don? I, too, am a -man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our gracious Coarb, -and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province. My soul is -decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the salley gardens. -I said what I could for you, being also a man of many thoughts, but who -could help such a one as you?” - -“My soul, friend,” answered the gleeman, “is indeed like the wind, and -it blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my -mind and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, Wild -Horse.” And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were chattering -with the cold. - -The Coarb and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get -ready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. And while he -still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed high -above him with clanking cries. He lifted his arms to them and said, “O -great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul will travel -with you to the waste places of the shore and to the ungovernable sea!” -At the gate a crowd of beggars gathered about them, being come there to -beg from any traveller or pilgrim who might have spent the night in the -guest-house. The Coarb and the friars led the gleeman to a place in the -woods at some distance, where many straight young trees were growing, -and they made him cut one down and fashion it to the right length, while -the beggars stood round them in a ring, talking and gesticulating. The -Coarb then bade him cut off another and shorter piece of wood, and nail -it upon the first. So there was his cross for him; and they put it upon -his shoulder, for his crucifixion was to be on the top of the hill where -the others were. A half-mile on the way he asked them to stop and see -him juggle for them: for he knew, he said, all the tricks of Angus the -Subtle-Hearted. The old friars were for pressing on, but the young -friars would see him: so he did many wonders for them, even to the -drawing of live frogs out of his ears. But after a while they turned on -him, and said his tricks were dull and a shade unholy, and set the cross -on his shoulders again. Another half-mile on the way, and he asked them -to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all the jests -of Conan the Bald, upon whose back a sheep’s wool grew. And the young -friars, when they had heard his merry tales, again bade him take up his -cross, for it ill became them to listen to such follies. Another -half-mile on the way, he asked them to stop and hear him sing the story -of White-Breasted Deirdre, and how she endured many sorrows, and how the -sons of Usna died to serve her. And the young friars were mad to hear -him, but when he had ended, they grew angry, and beat him for waking -forgotten longings in their hearts. So they set the cross upon his back, -and hurried him to the hill. - -When he was come to the top, they took the cross from him, and began to -dig a hole to stand it in, while the beggars gathered round, and talked -among themselves. “I ask a favour before I die,” says Cumhal. - -“We will grant you no more delays,” says the Coarb. - -“I ask no more delays, for I have drawn the sword, and told the truth, -and lived my vision and am content.” - -“Would you then confess?” - -“By sun and moon, not I; I ask but to be let eat the food I carry in my -wallet. I carry food in my wallet whenever I go upon a journey, but I do -not taste of it unless I am well-nigh starved. I have not eaten now -these two days.” - -“You may eat, then,” says the Coarb, and he turned to help the friars -dig the hole. - -The gleeman took a loaf and some strips of cold fried bacon out of his -wallet and laid them upon the ground. “I will give a tithe to the poor,” -says he, and he cut a tenth part from the loaf and the bacon. “Who among -you is the poorest?” And thereupon was a great clamour, for the beggars -began the history of their sorrows and their poverty, and their yellow -faces swayed like the Shelly River when the floods have filled it with -water from the bogs. - -He listened for a little, and, says he, “I am myself the poorest, for I -have travelled the bare road, and by the glittering footsteps of the -sea; and the tattered doublet of parti-coloured cloth upon my back, and -the torn pointed shoes upon my feet have ever irked me, because of the -towered city full of noble raiment which was in my heart. And I have -been the more alone upon the roads and by the sea, because I heard in my -heart the rustling of the rose-bordered dress of her who is more subtle -than Angus, the Subtle-Hearted, and more full of the beauty of laughter -than Conan the Bald, and more full of the wisdom of tears than -White-Breasted Deirdre, and more lovely than a bursting dawn to them -that are lost in the darkness. Therefore, I award the tithe to myself; -but yet, because I am done with all things, I give it unto you.” - -So he flung the bread and the strips of bacon among the beggars, and -they fought with many cries until the last scrap was eaten. But -meanwhile the friars nailed the gleeman to his cross, and set it upright -in the hole, and shovelled the earth in at the foot, and trampled it -level and hard. So then they went away, but the beggars stared on, -sitting round the cross. But when the sun was sinking, they also got up -to go, for the air was getting chilly. And as soon as they had gone a -little way, the wolves, who had been showing themselves on the edge of a -neighbouring coppice, came nearer, and the birds wheeled closer and -closer. “Stay, outcasts, yet a little while,” the crucified one called -in a weak voice to the beggars, “and keep the beasts and the birds from -me.” But the beggars were angry because he had called them outcasts, so -they threw stones and mud at him, and went their way. Then the wolves -gathered at the foot of the cross, and the birds lighted all at once -upon his head and arms and shoulders, and began to peck at him, and the -wolves began to eat his feet. “Outcasts,” he moaned, “have you also -turned against the outcast?” - - - - -THE DRUMS OF KAIRWAN - -By the MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTON - - From Tales of Travel, by The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. - Copyright, 1923, by George H. Doran Company.. - - -When the appointed hour arrived, I presented myself at the mosque, which -is situated outside the city walls of Kairwan, not far from the -Bab-el-Djuluddin, or Tanners’ Gate. Passing through an open courtyard -into the main building, I was received with a dignified salaam by the -sheik, who forthwith led me to a platform or divan at the upper end of -the central space. This was surmounted by a ribbed and white-washed -dome, and was separated from two side aisles by rows of marble columns -with battered capitals, dating from the Empire of Rome. Between the -arches of the roof small and feeble lamps—mere lighted wicks floating on -dingy oil in cups of coloured glass—ostrich eggs, and gilt balls were -suspended from wooden beams. From the cupola in the centre hung a -dilapidated chandelier in which flickered a few miserable candles. In -one of the side aisles a plastered tomb was visible behind an iron -lattice. The _mise en scène_ was unprepossessing and squalid. - -My attention was next turned to the _dramatis personae_. Upon the floor -in the centre beneath the dome sat the musicians, ten or a dozen in -number, cross-legged, the chief presiding upon a stool at the head of -the circle. I observed no instrument save the _darabookah_, or earthen -drum, and a number of tambours, the skins of which, stretched tightly -across the frames, gave forth, when struck sharply by the fingers, a -hollow and resonant note. The rest of the orchestra was occupied by the -chorus. So far no actors were visible. The remainder of the floor, both -under the dome and in the aisles, was thickly covered with seated and -motionless figures, presenting in the fitful light a weird and fantastic -picture. In all there must have been over a hundred persons, all males, -in the mosque. - -Presently the sheik gave the signal for commencement, and in a moment -burst forth the melancholy chant of the Arab voices and the ceaseless -droning of the drums. The song was not what we should call singing, but -a plaintive and quavering wail, pursued in a certain cadence, now -falling to a moan, now terminating in a shriek, but always pitiful, -piercing and inexpressibly sad. The tambours, which were struck like the -keyboard of a piano, by the outstretched fingers of the hand, and, -occasionally, when a louder note was required, by the thumb, kept up a -monotonous refrain in the background. From time to time, at moments of -greater stress, they were brandished high in the air and beaten with all -the force of fingers and thumb combined. Then the noise was imperious -and deafening. - -Among the singers, one grizzled and bearded veteran, with a strident and -nasal intonation, surpassed his fellows. He observed the time with -grotesque reflections of his body; his eyes were fixed and shone with -religious zeal. - -The chant proceeded, and the figures of the singers, as they became more -and more excited, rocked to and fro. More people poured in at the -doorway, and the building was now quite full. I began to wonder whether -the musicians were also to be the performers, or when the latter would -make their appearance. - -Suddenly a line of four or five Arabs formed itself in front of the -entrance on the far side of the orchestra, and exactly opposite the -bench on which I was sitting. They joined hands, the right of each -clasped in the left of his neighbour, and began a lurching, swaying -motion with their bodies and feet. At first they appeared simply to be -marking time, first with one foot and then with the other; but the -movement was gradually communicated to every member of their bodies; and -from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet they were presently -keeping time with the music in convulsive jerks and leaps and -undulations, the music itself being regulated by the untiring orchestra -of the drums. - -This mysterious row of bobbing figures seemed to exercise an -irresistible fascination over the spectators. Every moment one or other -of these left his place to join its ranks. They pushed their way into -the middle, severing the chain for an instant, or joined themselves on -to the ends. The older men appeared to have a right to the centre, the -boys and children—for there were youngsters present not more than seven -or eight years old—were on the wings. Thus the line ever lengthened; -originally it consisted of three or four, presently it was ten or -twelve, anon it was twenty-five or thirty, and before the -self-torturings commenced there were as many as forty human figures -stretching right across the building, and all rocking backwards and -forwards in grim and ungraceful unison, Even the spectators who kept -their places could not resist the contagion; as they sat there they -unconsciously kept time with their heads and shoulders, and one child -swung his little head this way and that with a fury that threatened to -separate it from his body. - -Meanwhile, the music had been growing in intensity, the orchestra -sharing the excitement, which they communicated. The drummers beat their -tambours with redoubled force, lifting them high above their heads and -occasionally, at some extreme pitch, tossing them aloft and catching -them again as they fell. Sometimes in the exaltation of frenzy they -started spasmodically to their feet and then sank back into their -original position. But ever and without a pause continued the insistent -accompaniment of the drums. - -And now the oscillating line in front of the doorway for the first time -found utterance. As they leaped high on one foot, alternately kicking -out the other, as their heads wagged to and fro and their bodies -quivered with the muscular strain, they cried aloud in praise of Allah. -_La ilaha ill Allah!_ (There is no God but Allah)—this was the untiring -burden of their strain. And then came _Ya Allah!_ (O God), and sometimes -_Ya Kahhar!_ (O avenging God), _Ya Hakk!_ (O just God), while each burst -of clamorous appeal culminated in an awful shout of _Ya Hoo!_ (O Him). - -The rapidity and vehemence of their gesticulations was now appalling; -their heads swung backwards and forwards till their foreheads almost -touched their breasts, and their scalps smote against their backs. Sweat -poured from their faces; they panted for breath; and the exclamations -burst from their mouths in a thick and stertorous murmur. Suddenly, and -without warning, the first phase of the _zikr_ ceased, and the actors -stood gasping, shaking, and dripping with perspiration. - -After a few seconds’ respite the performance recommenced, and shortly -waxed more furious than ever. The worshippers seemed to be gifted with -an almost superhuman strength and energy. As they flung themselves to -and fro, at one moment their upturned faces gleamed with a sickly polish -under the flickering lamps, at the next their turbaned heads all but -brushed the floor. Their eyes started from the sockets; the muscles on -their necks and the veins on their foreheads stood out like knotted -cords. One old man fell out of the ranks, breathless, spent, and -foaming. His place was taken by another, and the tumultuous orgy went -on. - -Presently, as the ecstasy approached its height and the fully initiated -became _melboos_ or possessed, they broke from the stereotyped litany -into domoniacal grinning and ferocious and bestial cries. These writhing -and contorted objects were no longer rational human beings, but savage -animals, caged brutes howling madly in the delirium of hunger or of -pain. They growled like bears, they barked like jackals, they roared -like lions, they laughed like hyænas; and ever and anon from the -seething rank rose a diabolical shriek, like the scream of a dying -horse, or the yell of a tortured fiend. And steadily the while in the -background resounded the implacable reverberation of the drums. - -The climax was now reached; the requisite pitch of cataleptic -inebriation had been obtained, and the rites of Aissa were about to -begin. From the crowd at the door a wild figure broke forth, tore off -his upper clothing till he was naked to the waist, and, throwing away -his fez, bared a head close-shaven save for one long and dishevelled -lock that, springing from the scalp, fell over his forehead like some -grisly and funereal plume. A long knife, somewhat resembling a cutlass, -was handed to him by the sheik, who had risen to his feet, and who -directed the phenomena that ensued. Waving it wildly above his head and -protruding the forepart of his figure, the fanatic brought it down blow -after blow against his bared stomach, and drew it savagely to and fro -against the unprotected skin. There showed the marks of a long and livid -weal, but no blood spurted from the gash. In the intervals between the -strokes he ran swiftly from one side to the other of the open space, -taking long stealthy strides like a panther about to spring, and -seemingly so powerless over his own movements that he knocked blindly up -against those who stood in his way, nearly upsetting them with the -violence of the collision. - -The prowess or the piety of this ardent devotee proved extraordinarily -contagious. First one and then another of his brethren caught the -afflatus and followed his example. In a few moments every part of the -mosque was the scene of some novel and horrible rite of self-mutilation, -performed by a fresh aspirant to the favour of Allah. Some of these -feats did not rise above the level of the curious but explicable -performances which are sometimes seen upon English stages; _e.g._, of -the men who swallow swords, and carry enormous weights suspended from -their jaws; achievements which are in no sense a trick or a deception, -but are to be attributed to abnormal physical powers or structure -developed by long and often perilous practice. In the Aissaiouian -counterpart of these displays there was nothing specially remarkable, -but there were others less commonplace and more difficult of -explanation. - -At length, several long iron spits or prongs were produced and -distributed; these formidable implements were about two and a half feet -in length and sharply pointed, and they terminated at the handle in a -circular wooden knob about the size of a large orange. There was great -competition for these instruments of torture, which were used as -follows: Poising one in the air, an Aissioui would suddenly force the -point into the flesh of his own shoulder in front just below the -shoulder blade. Thus transfixed, and holding the weapon aloft, he strode -swiftly up and down. Suddenly, at a signal, he fell on his knees, still -forcing the point into his body, and keeping the wooden head uppermost. -Then there started up another disciple armed with a big wooden mallet, -and he, after a few preliminary taps, rising high on tip-toe with -uplifted weapon would, with an ear-splitting yell, bring it down with -all his force upon the wooden knob, driving the point home through the -shoulder of his comrade. Blow succeeded blow, the victim wincing beneath -the stroke, but uttering no sound, and fixing his eyes with a look of -ineffable delight upon his torturer, till the point was driven right -through the shoulder and projected at the back. Then the patient marched -backwards and forwards with the air and the gait of a conquering hero. -At one moment there were four of these semi-naked maniacs within a yard -of my feet, transfixed and trembling, but beatified and triumphant. Amid -the cries and the swelter, there never ceased for one second the sullen -and menacing vociferation of the drums. - -Another man seized an iron skewer, and, placing the point within his -open jaws, forced it steadily through his cheek until it protruded a -couple of inches on the outside. He barked savagely like a dog, and -foamed at the lips. - -Others, afflicted with exquisite spasms of hunger, knelt down before the -chief, whimpering like children for food, and turning upon him imploring -glances from their glazed and bloodshot eyes. His control over his -following was supreme. Some he gratified, others he forbade. At a touch -from him, they were silent and relaxed into quiescence. One maddened -wretch who, fancying himself some wild beast, plunged to and fro, -roaring horribly, and biting and tearing with his teeth at whomever he -met, was advancing, as I thought, with somewhat truculent intent in my -direction, when he was arrested by his superior and sent back, cringing -and cowed. - -For those whose ravenous appetites he was content to humour the most -singular repast was prepared. A plate was brought in, covered with huge -jagged pieces of broken glass, as thick as a shattered soda-water -bottle. With greedy chuckles and gurglings of delight, one of the hungry -ones dashed at it, crammed a handful into his mouth, and crunched it up -as though it were some exquisite dainty, a fellow-disciple calmly -stroking the exterior of his throat, with intent, I suppose, to -lubricate the descent of the unwonted morsels. A little child held up a -snake or a sand-worm by the tail, placing the head between his teeth, -and gulped it gleefully down. Several acolytes came in, carrying a big -stem of the prickly pear, or _fico d’India_, whose leaves are as thick -as a one-inch plank, and are armed with huge projecting thorns. This was -ambrosia to the starving saints. They rushed at it with passionate -emulation, tearing at the solid slabs with their teeth, and gnawing and -munching the coarse fibers, regardless of the thorns which pierced their -tongues and cheeks as they swallowed them down. - -The most singular feature of all, and the one that almost defies belief, -though it is none the less true, was this—that in no case did one drop -of blood emerge from scar, or gash, or wound. This fact I observed most -carefully, the _mokaddem_ standing at my side, and each patient in turn -coming to him when his self-imposed torture had been accomplished, and -the cataleptic frenzy had spent its force. It was the chief who -cunningly withdrew the blade from cheek or shoulder or body, rubbing -over the spot what appeared to me to be the saliva of his own mouth; -then he whispered an absolution in the ear of the disciple, and kissed -him on the forehead, whereupon the patient, but a moment before writhing -in maniacal transports, retired tranquilly and took his seat upon the -floor. He seemed none the worse for his recent paroxysm, and the wound -was marked only by a livid blotch or a hectic flush. - -This was the scene that for more than an hour went on without pause or -intermission before my eyes. The building might have been tenanted by -the Harpies or Laestrygones of Homer, or by some inhuman monsters of -legendary myth. Amid the dust and sweat and insufferable heat the naked -bodies of the actors shone with a ghastly pallor and exhaled a sickening -smell. The atmosphere reeked with heavy and intoxicating fumes. Above -the despairing chant of the singers rang the frenzied yells of the -possessed, the shrieks of the hammerer, and the inarticulate cries, the -snarling and growling, the bellowing and miauling of the self-imagined -beasts. And ever behind and through all re-echoed the perpetual and -pitiless imprecation of the drums. - -As I witnessed the disgusting spectacle and listened to the pandemonium -of sounds, my head swam, my eyes became dim, my senses reeled, and I -believed that in a few moments I must have fainted, had not one of my -friends touched me on the shoulder, and, whispering that the _mokaddem_ -was desirous that I should leave, escorted me hurriedly to the door. As -I walked back to my quarters, and long after through the still night, -the beat of the tambours continued, and I heard the distant hum of -voices, broken at intervals by an isolated and piercing cry. Perhaps yet -further and more revolting orgies were celebrated after I had left. I -had not seen, as other travellers have done, the chewing and swallowing -of red-hot cinders,[1] or the harmless handling and walking upon live -coals. I had been spared that which others have described as the climax -of the gluttonous debauch, _viz._, the introduction of a live sheep, -which then and there is savagely torn to pieces and devoured raw by -these unnatural banqueters. But I had seen enough, and as I sank to -sleep my agitated fancy pursued a thousand avenues of thought, -confounding in one grim medley all the carnivorous horrors of fact and -fable and fiction. Loud above the din and discord the tale of the false -prophets of Carmel, awakened by the train of association, rang in my -ears, till I seemed to hear intoned with remorseless repetition the -words: “They cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with -knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them”; and in the -ever-receding distance of dreamland, faint and yet fainter, there -throbbed the inexorable and unfaltering delirium of the drums. - ------ - -[1] For an account of this exploit, _vide_ Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_, -cap. xxv.; and compare the description of Richardson, the famous -fire-eater, in Evelyn’s _Memoirs_ for October 8, 1672. - - - - -A LIFE—A BOWL OF RICE - -By L. DE BRA - - -Bow Sam stood in the doorway by his sugar-cane stand and watched with -narrowed eyes an old man who shuffled uncertainly down the alley towards -him. - -“_Hoo la ma!_” cried Bow Sam, in surprised Cantonese as the old man drew -near. “Hello, there! I scarcely knew you, venerable Fa’ng!” - -Fa’ng, the hatchetman, straightened his bent shoulders and looked up. -There was a gleam in his deep bronze eyes that was hardly in keeping -with his withered frame. - -“_Hoo la ma_, Bow Sam,” he said, his voice strangely deep and vibrant. - -“You have grown very thin,” remarked Bow Sam with friendly interest. - -“_Hi low_; that is true. But why carry around flesh that is not food?” - -The sugar-cane vendor eyed the other shrewdly. What was the gossip he -had heard concerning Fa’ng, the famous old hatchetman? Was it not that -the old man was always hungry? Yes, that was it! Fa’ng, whose long knife -and swift arm had been the most feared thing in all Chinatown, was -starving—too proud to beg, too honest to steal. - -“You have eaten well, venerable Fa’ng?” The inquiry was in a casual -tone, respectful. - -“_Aih_, I have eaten well,” replied the old hatchetman, averting his -face. - -“How unfortunate for me! I have not yet eaten my rice; for when one must -dine alone, one goes slowly to table. Is it not written that a bowl of -rice shared is doubly enjoyed? Would you not at least have a cup of tea -while I eat my mean fare?” - -“I shall be honoured to sip tea with you, estimable Bow Sam,” replied -the hatchetman with poorly disguised eagerness. - -“Then condescend to enter my poor house! Ah, one does not often have the -pleasure of your company in these days!” - -Bow Sam preceded his guest to the wretched hovel that was the sugar-cane -vendor’s only home. There he quickly removed all trace of the bowl of -rice he had eaten but a moment before. - -“Will you take this poor stool, venerable Fa’ng?” said Bow, setting out -the only stool he possessed, and placing it so that the hatchetman’s -back would be to the stove. - -Wearily, Fa’ng sat down. Bow put out two small cups, each worn and badly -chipped, and filled them with hot tea. Then, while the hatchetman sipped -his tea, Bow uncovered the rice kettle. There was but one bowl of rice -left. Bow Sam had intended to keep it for his evening meal; for until he -sold some sugar-cane, he had no way of obtaining more food. - -Behind Fa’ng’s back, Bow took two rice bowls and set them on the stove. -One bowl he heaped full for the hatchetman. In the other he put an -upturned tea bowl and sprinkled over it his last few grains of rice. - -“Let us give thanks to the gods of the kitchen that we have food and -teeth and appetite,” chuckled Bow Sam, seating himself on a sugar-cane -box opposite Fa’ng. - -“Well spoken,” returned the old hatchetman, quickly filling his mouth -with the nourishing rice. “_Aih_, there is much in life to make one -content.” - -With his chop-sticks Bow Sam deftly took up a few grains of rice, taking -care lest he uncover the upturned tea bowl. He was deeply grateful that -he had a few teeth left, that he quite often had enough rice, and -sometimes had meat as often as once a month; but to hear the proud old -hatchetman express such sentiments on an empty stomach filled him with -admiration. - -“What a virtue to be content with one’s lot!” he exclaimed, refilling -the hatchetman’s tea bowl. “Yet the younger generation are always -fretting because they think they have not enough; while, as anyone -knows, they have much more than we who first came to this land of the -white foreign devil.” - -“They are young,” spoke Fa’ng, nodding his head slowly. “For us the days -have fled, the years have not tarried. And we have learned that if one -has but a bowl of rice for food and a bent arm for pillow, one can be -content.” - -“_Haie!_ How can you speak so softly of the younger generation when it -is they who have robbed you of your livelihood? I know the gossip. You, -the most famous killer in Chinatown, find yourself cast out like a -worn-out broom by these young upstarts who have no respect for their -elders. Is it not true?” - -With his left hand the old hatchetman made an eloquent gesture, -peculiarly Chinese, much as one quickly throws open a fan. - -“Of what value are words, my friend? They cannot change that which is -changeless. A word cannot temper the wind, nor a phrase procure food for -a hungry stomach.” - -“Nevertheless, I do not like such things,” persisted Sam. “I love the -old ways. You were an honourable and fearless killer. When you were -hired to slay one’s enemy you went boldly to your victim and told him -your business. Then, swiftly, even before the doomed one could open his -lips, you struck—cleaned your blade and walked your way. - -“The modern killers!” Bow Sam spewed the words out as one does sour -rice. “They are too cowardly to use the knife. They hide on roofs, fire -on their victims, then throw away their guns and flee like thieves. -_Aih_, what have we come to in these days! - -“It was but yesterday after mid-day rice that I had speech with Gar -Ling, a gunman of the Sin Wah tong. He stopped to buy sugar-cane, and I -told him that had I the money I would hire him. There is one of the -younger generation, the pock-marked son of Quong, the dealer in jade, -who has greatly wronged me and my honourable family name, and my -distinguished ancestors. As you very well know, one cannot soil one’s -own hands with the blood of vengeance. Moreover, I have no weapon, not -even a dull cleaver. Neither can I afford to hire a fighting man. - -“I was telling all this to Gar Ling,” went on Bow, straining the last -drop of tea into Fa’ng’s bowl, “and he told me he would settle my -quarrel, but it would cost one thousand dollars. When I told him I had -not even a thousand copper _cash_, he became angry and abusive. As he -walked his way, quickly, like a foreign devil, he spat in my direction -and called me an unspeakable name.” - -“_Ts, ts!_ You should have wrung his neck. Repeat to me his unspeakable -words.” - -“He said,” cried Bow Sam, his face twisted in fury, “that I am the son -of a turtle!” - -“_Aih-yah!_ How insulting! As anyone knows, in all our language there is -no epithet more vile!” - -“That is true. But what is even worse, I did not remember until after he -had gone that he had not paid me for the piece of sugar-cane. Such is -the way of the younger generation; and we, who have been long in the -land, can do nothing.” - -“Yet it is by such things that one learns the lesson of enduring -tranquillity,” remarked Fa’ng, smacking his lips and moving back from -the table. - -For about the time, then, that it takes one to make nine bows before the -household gods, neither man made speech. Then Fa’ng arose. - -“An excellent bowl of rice, my good friend.” - -“_Aih_, it shames me to have to give you such mean fare.” - -“And the tea was most fragrant.” - -“_Ts_, it was only the cheapest Black Dragon.” - -The two old men went to the door. - -“_Ho hang la_,” said the hatchetman. - -“_Ho hang la_,” echoed the sugar-cane vendor. “I hope you have a safe -walk.” - -Fa’ng, the hatchetman, made his way down the alley to the rear entrance -of a pawnshop. There he spoke a few words with the proprietor. - -“I know you are honest, old man,” said the pawnbroker. “But instead of -bringing it back, I hope, for your own sake, you will be able to pay -what you owe me.” - -Then from a safe he took a knife with long, slender blade and a handle -of ebony in which had been carved an unbelievable number of notches. -Fa’ng took the knife, handling it as one does an object of precious -memories, concealed it beneath his tattered blouse, and went his way. - -Near the entrance of a gambling house in Canton Alley the old hatchetman -met the pock-marked son of Quong, the dealer in jade. - -“For the wrong you have done Bow Sam, his family name, and his -distinguished ancestors,” said Fa’ng quietly; and before the other could -open his lips the long blade was through his heart. - -In front of a cigar store in Shanghai Place, Fa’ng found Gar Ling, the -gunman. “I have business of moment with you, Gar Ling,” said the -hatchetman. “Come.” - -Gar Ling hesitated. He stood in great fear of the old killer, yet he -dared not show that fear before his young friends. So with his left hand -he gave a peculiar signal. A boy standing near with a basket of _lichee_ -nuts on his arm turned quickly and followed the two men down the alley. -Drawing near his employer, the boy held up the basket as though -soliciting the gunman to buy. Gar’s hand darted swiftly into the basket, -beneath the lichee nuts, and came out with a heavy automatic pistol -which he quickly concealed beneath his blouse. - -The old hatchetman knew all the tricks of the young gunman, but he -pretended he had not seen. As they turned a dark corner, he paused. - -“For the insulting words you spoke to Bow Sam,” he said calmly, and the -long blade glided between the gunman’s ribs. - -As Fa’ng drew the steel away, Gar Ling staggered, fired once, then -collapsed. - -Bow Sam stood in the doorway by his sugar-cane stand and watched with -narrowed eyes an old man who shuffled uncertainly down the alley toward -him. - -“_Hoo la ma!_” he cried, as the old man drew near. “I did not expect to -see you again so soon.” - -The old hatchetman did not raise his head nor reply. Staggering, he -crossed the threshold and fell on his face on the littered floor. - -With a throaty cry Bow Sam slammed the door shut. He bent over Fa’ng. - -“This knife,” said the hatchetman; “take it—to Wong the pawnbroker. Tell -him—all. Worth—more—than I owe.” - -“But what’s——” - -“For the wrong that the pock-marked one did you, for the insult Gar Ling -spoke to you, I slew them,” said Fa’ng, with sudden strength. “My debt -is paid. _Tsau kom lok._” - -“_Haie!_ You did that! Why did you do that? I could never pay you! And -look! _Aih-yah_, oh, how piteous! You are dying!” - -With awkward fingers, the vendor of sugar-cane tried to staunch the flow -of blood where Gar Ling’s bullet had struck with deadly effect. - -“Pay me?” breathed Fa’ng the hatchetman. “Did you—not—feed me? Can -one—put a value—on food—when the stomach—is empty? _Aih_, what—matters -it? A life,”—his eyelids fluttered and closed—“a life—a bowl of -rice....” - - - - -HODGE - -By ELINOR MORDAUNT. - - -People are accustomed to think of Somerset as a country of deep, bosky -bays, sunny coves, woods, moorlands, but Hemerton was in itself -sufficient to blur this bland illusion. It lay a mile and a half back -from the sea, counting it all full tide; at low tide the sly, smooth -waters, unbroken by a single rock, slipped away for another mile or more -across a dreary ooze of black mud. - -The village lay pasted flat upon the marsh, with no trees worthy of the -name in sight: a few twisted black-thorn bushes, a few split willows, -one wreck of a giant blighted ash in the Rectory gardens, and that was -all. - -For months on end the place swam in vapours. There were wonderful -effects of sunrise and sunset, veils of crimson and gold, of every shade -of blue and purple. At times the grey sea-lavender was like silver, the -wet, black mud gleaming like dark opals; while at high summer there was -purple willow-strife spilled thick along the ditches, giving the strange -place a transitory air of warm-blooded life; but for the most part it -was all as aloof and detached as a sleep-walker. - -The birds fitted the place as a verger fits his quiet and dusky church: -herons and waders of all kinds; wild-crying curlew; and here and there a -hawk, hanging motionless high overhead. - -There were scarcely fifty houses in Hemerton, and these were all alike, -flat and brown and grey; where there had been plaster it was flaked and -ashen. The very church stooped, as though shamed to a sort of -poor-relation pose by the immense indifference of the mist-veiled -sky—the drooping lids on a scornful face—for even at midday, in -mid-summer, the heavens were never quite clear, quite blue, but still -veiled and apart. - -The Rectory was a two-storied building, low at that, and patched with -damp: small, with a narrow-chested air, tiny windows, a thin, grudging -doorway, blistered paint, which gave it a leprous air; and just that one -tree, with its pale, curled leaves in summer, its jangling keys in -winter. - -It was amazing to find that any creature so warmly vital as the Rector’s -daughter, Rhoda Fane, had been begotten, born, reared in such a place; -spent her entire life there, apart from two years of school at Clifton, -and six months in Brussels, cut short by her mother’s death. - -She was like a beech wood in September: ruddy, crisp, fragrant. Her -hair, dark-brown, with copper lights, was so springing with life that it -seemed more inclined to grow up than hang down; her face was almost -round, her wide, brown eyes frank and eager. She was as good as any man -with her leaping-pole: broad-shouldered, deep-breasted, with a soft, -deep contralto voice. - -Her only brother, Hector, was four years younger than herself. Funds had -run low, drained away by their mother’s illness, before it was time for -him to go to school; he was too delicate for the second-best, roughing -it among lads of a lower class, and so he was kept at home, taught by -his father: a thin trickle of distilled classics and wavering -mathematics; a good deal of history, no geography. - -He, in startling contrast to his sister, was a true child of the -marshes: thin light hair, vellum-white, peaked face, pale grey eyes -beneath an overhanging brow, large, transparent ears: narrow-chested, -long-armed, stooping, so that he seemed almost a hunchback. - -In all ways he was the shadow of Rhoda, followed her everywhere; and as -there is no shadow without the sun, so it seemed that he could scarcely -have existed apart from her. Small as he already was, he almost puled -himself out of life while she was away at school; and after a bare week -from home she would get back to find him with the best part of his -substance peeled from him, white as a willow-wand. - -Different as these two were, they were passionately attached to each -other. The Rector was a kind father when he drew himself out of the -morass of melancholy and disillusion into which he had fallen since his -wife died, wilting away with damp and discontent, and sheer loathing of -the soil in which it had been his misfortune to plant her. But still, at -the best, he was a parent, and so apart, while there were no neighbours, -no playfellows. - -Once or twice Rhoda’s school-friends came to stay at the Rectory, and -for the first day or so it seemed delightful to talk of dress, of a -gayer world, possible lovers. But after a very little while they began -to pall on her: they understood nothing of what was her one absorbing -interest—the natural life of the place in which she lived: were -discontented, disdainful of the marshland, hated the mud, feared the -fogs, shivered in the damp. - -Anyhow, the brother and sister were sufficient to each other, for they -shared a never-failing, or even diminishing, interest—and what more can -any two people wish for?—a passionate absorption in, a minute knowledge -of, the wild life of the marshland; its legends and folklore; its habits -and calls; the mating seasons and manners of the birds; the place and -habit of every wild flower; the way of the wind with the sky, and all -its portents; the changing seasons, seemingly so uneven from year to -year, and yet working out so much the same in the end. - -They could not have said how they first came to hear of the Forest: they -had always talked of it. To Hector, at least, it was so vivid that he -seemed to have actually struggled through its immense depths, swung in -its hanging creepers, smelt its sickly-sweet orchids, breathed its hot, -damp air—so far real to both alike that they would find themselves -saying, “Do you remember?” in speaking of paths that they had never -traversed. - -Provisionally they had fixed their Forest at the Miocene Period. Or, -rather, this is what it came to: the boy ceasing to protest against the -winged monsters, the rhinoceros, the long-jawed mastodon which -fascinated the girl’s imagination; though there was one impassioned -scene when he flamed out over his clear remembrance of a sabre-toothed -tiger, putting all those others—stupid, hulking brutes!—out of court by -many thousands of years. - -“They couldn’t have been there, couldn’t—not with us and with ‘It’—I saw -it, I tell you—I tell you I saw it!” His pale face flamed, his eyes were -as bright as steel. “The mastodon! That’s nothing—nothing! But the -sabre-toothed tiger—I tell you I saw it. What are you grinning at -now?—in our Forest—ours, mind you!—I saw it!” - -“Oh, indeed, indeed!” Suddenly, because the day was so hot, because they -were bored, because she was unwittingly impressed, as always, by her -brother’s heat of conviction, Rhoda’s serene temper was gone. “And did -you see yourself? and what were you doing there, may I ask—you! Silly -infant, don’t you know that there weren’t any men then? Phew! Everyone -knows that—everyone. You and your old tiger!” - -There was mockery in her laugh as she took him by the lapels of his -coat; shook him. - -Then, next moment when he turned aside, sullen and pale, his brows in a -pent-house above his eyes, she was filled with contrition. The rotten, -thundery day had set her all on edge; it was a shame to tease him like -this; and, after all, how often had she herself remembered back? Though -there was a difference, and she knew it, a sense of fantasy, pretending; -while Hector was as jealous of every detail of their Forest as a -long-banished exile over every cherished memory of his own land. - -Though, of course, there were no men contemporary with that wretched -tiger: he knew that; he must know. - -Lolling under their one tree, in the steamy, early afternoon, she coaxed -him back to the subject, and was beaten upon it, as the half-hearted -always are. - -He was so amazingly clear about the whole thing.... Why, it might have -happened yesterday! - -He had been up in the trees, slinking along—not the hunting man, but the -hunted—watchful, furtive; a picker-up of what other beasts had slain and -taken their fill of: more watchful than usual because he had already -come across a carcass left by the long-toothed terror, all the blood -sucked out of it. Swinging from bough to bough by his hands—which, even -when he stood upright, as upright as possible, dangled far below his -knees—he had actually seen it; seen its gleaming tusks, its shining -eyes; seen it, and fled, wild with terror. - -Was it likely that he could ever forget it? “It and its beastly teeth!” -he added; then fell silent, brooding; while even Rhoda was awed to -silence. - -It was that very evening that they found their Forest, or, rather, a -part of it. They had gone over to the shore meaning to bathe, but for -once their memories were at fault; and they found that the tide was out, -a mere rim of molten lead on the far edge of the horizon. - -They were both tired, but they could not rest. They cut inland for a -bit, then out again; crossing the mudflats until the mud oozed above -their boots and drove them back again. - -They must have wandered about a long time, for the light—although it did -not actually go—became illusive; the air freshened with that salty scent -which tells of a flowing tide. - -Hector insisted that they ought to wait until it was full in, and have -their bath by moonlight; but, as Rhoda pointed out, that would mean no -supper, dawdling about for hours. After some time they compromised: they -would go out and meet the tide; see what it was like. - -Almost at the water’s edge they found It—their Forest. - -There it was, buried like a fly in amber: twisted trunks and boughs, -matted creepers, all ash-grey and black. - -How far it stretched up and down the shore they could not have said, the -time was too short, the sea too near for any exploration; but not far, -they thought, or they must have discovered it before. “Nothing more than -a fold out of the world, squeezed up to the surface”; that was what they -agreed upon. - -They divided and ran in opposite directions—“Just to try and find out,” -as Rhoda said. But after a few yards, a couple of dozen, maybe, they -called back to each other that they had lost it. - -The darkness gathering, the water almost to their feet; they were -bitterly disappointed, but anyhow there was to-morrow, many -“to-morrows.” - -All that evening they talked of nothing else. “It’s been there for -thousands and tens of thousands of years! It will be there to-morrow,” -they said. - -It was towards two o’clock in the morning that Hector, restless with -excitement and fear, padded into his sister’s room; found her -sleeping—stupidly sleeping—with the moonlight full upon her, and shook -her awake; unreasonably angry, as wakeful people always are with the -sleepers. - -“Suppose we never find it again! Oh, Rhoda, suppose we never find it -again!” - -“Find what?” - -“The Forest, you idiot!—our Forest.” - -“Hector, don’t be silly. Go back to bed; you’ll get cold. Of course -we’ll find it.” - -“Why of course? I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking. There -wasn’t a tree or bush or landmark of any sort: we had pottered about all -over the shop: supposing we’ve lost it for ever? Oh, supposing, Rhoda, -Rhoda! What sillies we were! Why didn’t we stay there, camp opposite it -until the tide went out? I feel it in my bones—we’ll never find it -again—never—never—never! There might have been skulls, all sorts of -things—long teeth—tigers’ teeth! And now we’ve lost it. It’s no good -talking—we’ve lost it; I know we’ve lost it—after all these years! After -thousands and thousands and thousands of years of remembering!” - -The boy’s forehead was glistening with sweat; the tears were running -down his face, white as bone in the moonlight. Rhoda drew him into her -bed, comforted him as best she could, very sleepy, and unperturbed—for, -of course, they would find it. How could they help finding it? And after -a while he fell asleep, still moaning and crying, searching for a lost -path through his dreams. - -He was right in his foreboding. They did not find it. Perhaps the tide -had been out further than usual: they had walked further than they -thought; they had dreamt the whole thing; the light had deceived -them—impossible to say. - -At first, in the broad light of day, even Hector was incredulous of -their misfortune. Then, as the completeness of their loss grew upon -them, they became desperate—possessed by that terrible restlessness of -the searcher after lost things. Day after day they would come back from -the sea worn out, utterly hopeless; declaring that here was the end of -the whole thing; sick at the very thought of the secret mud, the long -black shore. - -They gave it up. They would never go near “the rotten thing” again. - -Then, a few hours later, the thought of the freshly-receding tide began -to work like madness in their veins, and they would be out and away. - -It was easier for Rhoda; for she was of those who “sleep o’ nights”; -easier until she found that her brother slipped off on moonlight nights -while she slumbered: coming back at all hours, haggard and worn to -fainting-point. - -He stooped more than ever: his brow was more overhung, furrowed with -horizontal lines. Sometimes, furious with herself for her sleepiness, -Rhoda would awake, jump out of bed and run to the window in the fresh -dawn, to see the boy dragging himself home, old as the ages, his hands -hanging loose to his knees. - -At last the breaking-point came. He was very ill: after a long -convalescence, money was collected from numerous relations, family -treasures were sold, and he was sent away to school. - -He came back for his holidays a changed creature, talking of footer, -then of cricket; of boys and masters; of school—school—school—nothing -but school; blunt and practical. - -But all this was at the front of him, deliberately displayed in the -shop-windows. - -At the back of him, buried out of sight, there was still the visionary -rememberer. Rhoda, who loved him, realised this. - -At first she did not dare to speak of the Forest. Then, trying to get at -something of the old Hector, she pressed the point; pressed it and -pressed it. It was she now who kept on with that eternal, “Don’t you -remember?” - -The worst of the whole thing was that he did not even pretend to forget. -He did worse—he laughed. And in her own pain she now realised how often -and how deeply she must have hurt him. - -“Oh, that rot! What silly idiots we were! Such rot!” - -And yet, at the back of him, at the back of his too-direct gaze, his -laughter, there was _something_. Oh, yes, there was something. She was -certain of that. - -Deep, deep, hidden away at the back of him, at the back of that most -imperturbable of all reserves, a boy’s reserve, he remembered, felt as -he had always felt. He shut her out of it, that was all: her—Rhoda. - -At the end of a year they ceased to talk of the Forest; all those -far-back things dropped away from their intercourse. To outward seeming -their love for the countryside, their strange, unyouthful interest in -geology, the age-buried world, seemed a thing of the past. - -Hector had a bicycle now: he was often away for hours at a time. He -never even spoke of where he had been, what he had been doing. It was -always: “Nowhere in particular; nothing in particular.” - -Then, two years later, upon just such a breathless mid-summer day, he -burst in upon his sister, his face crimson with excitement. - -“I’ve found it! I never gave up—never for a moment! I pretended—I -thought you thought it rot—were drawing me on—but it’s there. We were -right. It’s there—there! Quick! quick! Now the tide’s just almost full -out.... Oh, by Jingo! to think I’ve found it! Rhoda, hurry up—quick!” He -was dancing with impatience. - -“I can ride the bike—you on the step,” breathed Rhoda, and snatched up a -hat. - -They flew. The village shot past them: the flat country swirled like a -top. At last they came to a place where there was a tiny rag of torn -handkerchief tied to a stick stuck upright in the ground. Here they left -the road, laid the bicycle in a dry ditch, and cut away across the -marsh; guided by more signals—scraps of cambric, then paper; towards the -end, one every ten yards or less, until Rhoda wondered how in the world -had the boy curbed himself to such care! - -Then—there it was. - -They stepped it: just on fifty yards long, indefinitely wide, running -out into little bays, here and there tailing off so that it was -impossible to discover any definite edge, sinking away out of sight like -a dream. - -The sun was blazing hot and the top of the mud dry. In places they went -down upon their hands and knees, peering; but really one saw most -standing a little way off, with one’s head bent, eyeing it sideways. - -It was in this way that Rhoda found It—Him! - -“Look—look! Oh, I say—there’s something.... A thing—an animal! -No—no—a—a——” - -“Sabre-toothed tiger!” The boy’s wild shriek of triumph showed how he -had hugged that old conjecture. - -He came running, but until he got his head at exactly the same slant as -hers he could see nothing, and was furiously petulant. - -“Idiot! Silly fool!—nothing but a bough. You——” A lucky angle, and, “Oh, -I say, by Jove! I’ve got it now! A man—a man!” - -“A monkey—a great ape; there were no men, then, with ‘It.’” There, it -seemed, she conceded him his tiger. “A little nearer—now again, there!” - -They crept towards it. It was clear enough at a little distance; but -nearer, what with the blazing sun and the queer incandescent lights on -the mud, they found difficulty in exactly placing it. At last they had -it, found themselves immediately over it; were able, kneeling side by -side, to gaze down at the strange, age-old figure, lying huddled -together, face forward. - -It was not more than a couple of feet down; the semitransparent mud must -have been silting over it for years and years: silted away again through -centuries. And all for them—just for them. What a thought! - -Hector raced off for his bicycle, and so on to the nearest cottage to -borrow a spade. - -The mental picture of the “man” and the sabre-toothed tiger met and -clashed in his brain. If he was so certain of the man he must concede -the tiger, given in to Rhoda and her later period. Unless—unless.... -Suddenly he clapped his hands to his ears as though someone were -shouting: his eyes closed, shutting out sight and sound. There _was_ a -tiger, he remembered—of course he remembered! And if he were there, -others were there also—not one tiger, not one man, but tigers and men; -both, both! - -By the time he got back to where he had left his sister, the water was -above her knees, the tide racing inwards. - -They were not going to be done this time, however. - -It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and their father was away from -home. Rhoda went back and ordered the household with as much sobriety as -possible; collected a supply of food and a couple of blankets—they had -camped out before and there was nothing so very amazing in their -behaviour—then returned to the shore, the shrine. - -Hector was sitting at the edge of the water, staring fixedly, white as a -sheet. - -Rhoda collected driftwood and built a fire; almost fed him, for he took -nothing but what was put into his hand. - -“It will still be there, even if we go to sleep,” she said; then, -“Anyhow, we’ll watch turn and turn about.” - -But it was all of no use. The boy might lie down in his turn, but he -still faced the sea with steady, staring eyes. - -Soon after three he woke his sister, shaking her in a frenzy of -impatience. Oh, these sleepers! - -“Sleeping! Sleeping! You great stupid, you! I never! I.... Just look at -the tide—only look!” - -The tide was pretty far out, the whole world a mist of pinkish-grey. -Step by step they followed the retreating lap of water. - - * * * * * - -By six o’clock they had the heavy body out, and were dragging it across -the rapidly-drying mud. - -It was not as big as Hector: five-foot-one at the most, but almost -incredibly heavy, with immense rounded shoulders. - -By the time they reached the true shore they were done, and flung -themselves down, panting, exhausted. But they could not rest. A few -minutes more and they were up again, turning the creature over, rubbing -the mud away from the hairy body with bunches of grass; parting the -long, matted locks which hung over its lowering face, with the overhung -brow, flat nose, almost non-existent chin. The eyes were shut, but oddly -unsunken: it smelt of marsh slime, of decayed vegetation, but nothing -more. - -Hector poked forward a finger to see if he could push up one eyelid, and -drew back sharply. - -“Why—hang it all—the thing’s warm!” - -“No wonder, with this sun. I’m dripping from head to foot. Hector, we -must go home. Matty will tell; there’ll be the eyes of a row.” - -For all her insistence it was another hour before Rhoda could get her -brother away. Again and again he met the returning tide with her hat, -bringing it back full of water; washing their find from head to foot, -combing its matted hair with a clipped fragment of driftwood. But at -last they dragged it to a dry dyke, covered it with dry yellow grass, -and were off, Rhoda on the step this time, Hector draped limply over the -handle of the bicycle. - -He slept like a dead thing for the best part of that day. But soon after -three they were away again: no use for Rhoda to raise objections; the -unrest of an intense excitement was in her bones as in his, and he knew -it. - -It had been a cloudless day, the veil of mist fainter than usual, the -sky bluer. - -As they left the bicycle and cut across the rough foreshore the sun beat -down upon them with an almost unbearable fierceness. There was a shimmer -like a mirage across the marshes: the sea was the colour of burnt steel. - -They dog-trotted half the way, arguing as they ran; Hector, still fixed, -pivoting upon his sabre-toothed tiger, and yet insistent that _this_ was -a man—a real man—contemporary with it: the first absolute proof of human -existence anterior to the First Glacial age. - -“An ape—a sort of ape—nearish to a man, but—well, look at his hair.” -She’d give him his tiger, but not his man. - -“By Gad, you’d grow hair, running wild as he did—a man——” - -“Hector, what rot! Why, anyone—anyone could see—” She thought of her -father, the smooth curate, the rubicund farmers.... A man! - -“Well, stick to it—stick to it! But I bet you anything—anything....” - -Hector’s words were jerked out of him as he padded on: - -“We’ll get hundreds and hundreds of pounds for him! Travel—see the -world—go to Java, where that other chap—what’s his name—was found. Why, -he’s older than the Heidelberg Johnny—a thousand thousand times -great-grandfather to that Pitcairn thing—older—older—oh, older than -any!” - -Panting, stumbling, half-blind with exhaustion, the boy was still a good -six yards in front of his sister as he reached the dry dyke where they -had left their treasure. - -Rhoda saw him stand for a moment, staring, then spin round as though he -had been shot, throwing up his arms with a hoarse scream. - -By the time she had her own arms about him, he could only point, -trembling from head to foot. - - * * * * * - -There was nothing there! Torn grass where they had pulled it to rub down -their find; the very shape of the body distinct upon the sandy, -sparsely-covered soil; the stick with the pennant of blue ribbon which -Rhoda had taken from her hat to mark the spot.... Nothing more, nothing -whatever. - -Up and down the girl ran, circling like a plover, her head bent. It must -be somewhere, it must—it must! - -She glanced at her brother, who stood as though turned to stone: this -was the sort of thing which sent people mad, killed them—to be so -frightfully disappointed, and yet to stand still, to say nothing. - -She caught at his arm and faced him, the tears streaming down her -cheeks. - -“Oh, my dear, my dear—” she began, then broke off, staring beyond him. - -“Why ... why—Hector—I say—” Her voice broke to a whisper: she had a -feeling as though she must be taking part in some mad dream. Quite -inconsequently the thought of Balaam came to her. How did Balaam feel -when the ass spoke to him? As she did—with eye more amazed than any ears -could ever be. - -“Hector—look.... It—It....” - -As her brother still stood speechless, with bent head and ashen face, -she dropped to silence: too terrified of It, of her plainly deluded -self, of everything on earth, to say more.... - -One simply could not trust one’s own eyes; that’s what it came to. - -Her legs were trembling; she could feel her knees touching each other, -cold and clammy. - -It would have been impossible to say a word, even if she had dared to -reveal her own insanity; she could only pluck the lapels of her -brother’s coat, running her dry tongue along her lips. - -Something in her unusual silence must have stirred through the boy’s own -misery, for after a moment or so he looked up, at first dimly, as though -scarcely recognising her. Then—slowly realising her intent glance fixed -on something beyond his own shoulder, he turned—and saw. - -Twenty yards or more off, on a mound of coarse grass and sand just above -the high-tide mark, “It” was sitting, its long arms wound round its -knees, staring out to sea. - -For a moment or so they hung, open-mouthed, wide-eyed. - -For the life of her, Rhoda could not have moved a step nearer. The -creature’s heavy shoulders were rounded, its head thrust forward. -Silhouetted against sea and sky, white in contrast to its darkness, it -had the aloofness of incredible age; drawn apart, almost sanctified by -its immeasurable remoteness, its detachment from all that meant life to -the men and women of the twentieth century: the web of fancied -necessities, trivial possessions, absorptions. - -“There was no sea—of course, there was no sea anywhere near here then!” -The boy’s whisper opened an incalculable panorama of world-wide change. - -There _had_ been no sea here then; no Bristol Channel, no Irish Sea. -Valley and river, that was all! - -This alien being who had lived, and more than half-died, in this very -spot, was gazing at something altogether strange: a vast, uneasy sheet -of water with but one visible bank; no golden-brown lights, no shadows, -no reflections: a strange, restless and indifferent god. - -“Well—anyhow.... Oh, blazes! here goes! if—” Young Fane broke off with a -decision that cut his doubts, and moved forward. - -In a moment the creature was alert, its head flung sideways and up, -sniffing the air like a dog. - -It half turned, as though to run; then, as the boy stopped short, it -paused. - -“Rhoda—get the grub—go quietly—don’t run.... Bread-and-butter—anything!” - -They had flung down the frail with the bottle of milk, cake, -bread-and-butter that they had brought with them—enough for tea and -supper—heedless in their despair. Rhoda moved a step or two away, picked -up a packet, unfolded it and thrust the food into her brother’s -hand—cake, a propitiation! - -The strange figure, upright—and yet not upright as it is counted in -these days—remained stationary; there was one quick turn of the head -following her, then the poise of it showed eyes immovably fixed upon the -male. - -Hector moved forward very slowly, one smooth step after another. Rhoda -had seen him like that with wild birds and rabbits. He wore an old suit -of shrunken flannels, faded to a yellowish-grey, which blurred him into -the landscape. Far enough off to catch his outline against the molten -glare of the sea, she noted that his shoulders were almost as bent as -those of that Other.... Other what?—man?—ape? The speculation zigzagged -to and fro like lightning through her mind. She could scarcely breathe -for anxiety. - -As the boy drew quite near to the dull, brownish figure it jerked its -head uneasily aside—she knew what Hector’s eyes were like, a steady, -luminous grey under the bent brows—made a swinging movement with its -arms, half turned; then stopped, stared sideways, crouching, sniffing. - -The boy’s arm was held out at its fullest stretch in front of him. -Heaven—the old, old gods—only knew upon what beast-torn carrion the -creature had once fed; but it was famished, and some instinct must have -told it that here was food, for it snatched and crammed its mouth. - -Hector turned and Rhoda’s heart was in her throat, for there was no -knowing what it might not do at that. But as he moved steadily away, -without so much as a glance behind him, it hesitated, threw up its hand, -as though to strike or throw; then followed. - - * * * * * - -That was the beginning of it. During those first days it would have -followed him to the end of the world. Later on, he told himself bitterly -that he had been a fool not to have seen further; gone off anywhere—oh, -anywhere, so long as it was far enough—dragging the brute after him -while his leadership still held. - -It was with difficulty that they prevented it from dogging them back to -the Rectory—just imagine it tailing through the village at their heels! -But once it understood that it must stay where it was, it sat down on a -grassy hummock, crouching with its arms round its knees, one hand -tightly clenched, its small, light eyes, overhung by that portentous -brow, following them with a look of desolate loneliness. - -Again and again the boy and girl glanced back, but it still sat there -staring after them, immovable in the spot which Hector had indicated to -it. They had left it all the food they had with them, and one of the -blankets which they had been too hot to carry home that morning. As it -plainly had not known what to do with the thing, Rhoda, overcome by a -sort of motherliness, had thrown it over its shoulders. Thus it sat, -shrouded like an Arab, its shaggy head cut like a giant burr against the -pale primrose sky. - -“A beastly shame leaving it alone like that!” They both felt it; -scarcely liked to meet each other’s eyes over it. And yet, pity it as -they might, engrossed in it as they were, they couldn’t stay there with -it after dark. No reason, no fear—just couldn’t! Why? Oh, well, for all -its new-found life, it was as far away as any ghost. - -“Poor brute!” said Rhoda. - -“Poor chap!” Hector’s under-lip was thrust out, his look aggressive. But -there was no argument; and when he treated her—“Don’t be silly; of -course it’s not a man; any duffer could see that”—with contemptuous -silence, Rhoda knew that he was absolutely fixed in his convictions. - -He proved it, too, next morning, leading the creature out into the -half-dried mud and back again to where his sister sat, following his -apparently aimless movements with puzzled eyes. - -“Now, look,” he crowed. “Just you look, Miss Blooming-Cocksure!” - -He was right. There was the mark of his own heavy nailed boot, and -beside it the track of other feet; oddly-shaped enough, but with the -weight distinctly thrown upon the heel and great-toe, as no beast save -man has ever yet thrown it—that fine developed great-toe, the emblem of -leadership. Hardly a trace of such pressure as the three greater apes -show, all on the outer edge of the foot; not even flat and even as the -baboon throws his. - -It was after this that—without another word said—Rhoda, meek for once, -followed her brother’s example, and began to speak of the creature as -“He.” - -They even gave him a name. They called him Hodge; only in fun, and yet -with a feeling that here was one of the first of all countrymen: less -learned, and yet in some way so much more observant, self-sufficing, -than his machine-made successors. - -He could run at an almost incredible rate, bent as he was; climb any -tree; out-throw either of them, doubling the distance. It was there that -they got at the meaning of that closed fist; for at least three days he -had never let go of his stone—his one weapon. - -“He didn’t trust us.” Rhoda was hurt, her vanity touched; and when they -had seemed to be making such progress, too! - -“Not that—a sort of ingrained habit; the poor devil didn’t feel dressed -without it,” protested Hector. “Of course he trusts us as much as a -perfectly natural creature ever trusts anything or anybody.” - - * * * * * - -The Rector had gone on a visit to their only relative, an old aunt, who -was dying in as leisurely a fashion as she had lived, and was unable to -leave her. A neighbouring curate took that next Sunday’s service. - -It had been a Monday when Hector found Hodge, and a very great deal can -happen in that time. - -From the first it had seemed clear that nothing in the way of -communicating with authorities, experts, could be done until their -father was there to back them, adding his own testimony. It was no good -just writing—Hector did, indeed, begin a letter to Sir Ray Lankester, -but tore it up, appalled by his own formless, boyish handwriting. “He’d -think we were just getting at him—a couple of silly kids,” was his -reflection. - -He knew a lot for his age; was very certain of his own knowledge; felt -no personal fear of this wild man of his. But ordinary grown-up people! -That was altogether a different matter. And here he touched the -primitive mistrust of all real youth for anything too completely -finished and sophisticated. - -Of course, from the very beginning, there were all sorts of minor -troubles with Matty over their continued thefts of food; difficulties in -keeping the creature away from the house and village. - -But all that was nothing to what followed. - -The first dim, unformulated sense of fear began on the night when -Hector, awakened by a loud rustling among the leaves of that one tree, -discovered Hodge there, climbing along a bough which ended close against -Rhoda’s window. - -Rhoda’s, not his—that was the queer part of it! - -The boy felt half huffed as he drove him off. But when he came again, -some instinct, something far less plain than thought, began to worry -him: something which seemed ludicrous, until it gathered and grew to a -feeling of nausea so horrible that the cold sweat pricked out upon his -breast and forehead. - -At the third visit the fear was more defined. But still.... That brute -“smitten” with Rhoda! He tried to laugh it off. Anyhow, what did it -matter? And yet.... Hang it all! there was something sickening about it -all. It was impossible to sleep at night, listening, always listening. - -He was only thirteen. Of course he had heard other chaps talking, but he -had no real idea of the fierce drive of physical desire. And yet it was -plain enough that here was something “beastly” beyond all words. - -He told Rhoda to keep her window bolted, and when she protested against -such “fugging,” touched on his own fears, tried, awkwardly enough, to -explain without explaining. - -“I’m funky about Hodge—he’s taken to following us. He might get in—bag -something.” - -“The darling!” cried Rhoda. “Look here, old chap. I really believe he’s -fond of me; fonder of me than of you!” - -She persisted in putting it to the test next day; left “Hodge” sitting -by her brother, and walked away. - -The creature moved his head uneasily from side to side, glanced at -Hector, and his glance was full of hatred, malevolence; then, scrambling -furtively to his feet, helping himself with his hands, one fist -tight-closed, in the old fashion, he passed round the back of the boy, -and followed her. - -For a minute or two Hector sat hunched together, staring doggedly out to -sea. If Rhoda chose to make an ass of herself—well, let her. After all, -what could the brute do? She was bigger than he was, had nothing on her -worth stealing; nothing of any use to Hodge, anyhow, he told himself. - -Then, of a sudden, that half-formulated dread, that sick panic seized -him afresh. He glanced round; both Hodge and his sister were out of -sight, and he started to run with all his might, shouting. - -There was an answering cry from Rhoda, shriller than usual, with a note -of panic in it. This gave him the direction; and, plunging off among a -group of shallow sand-dunes, he found himself almost upon them. - -Rhoda was drawn up very straight, laughing nervously, her shoulders -back, flushed to the eyes, while Hodge stood close in front of her, -gabbling—they had tried him with their own words, but the oddly-angled -jaw had seemed to cramp the tongue beyond hope of articulate -speech—gabbling, gesticulating. - -“Oh, Hector!” The girl’s cry was full of relief as she swung sideways -toward him; while Hodge, glancing round, saw him, raised his hand, and -threw. - -The stone just grazed the boy’s cheek, drawing a spurt of blood; but -this was enough for Rhoda, who forgot her own panic in a flame of -indignation. - -The creature could not have understood a word of what she said: her -denunciation, abuse, “the wigging” she gave him. But her look was -enough, and he shrank aside, shamed as a beaten dog. - -They did not bid him good-night. They had taught him to shake hands; but -now that he was in disgrace all that was over, and they turned aside -with the set severity of youth: bent brows and straightened, hard -mouths. - -Rhoda was the first to relent, half-way home, breaking their silence -with a laugh: “Poor old Hodge! I don’t know why I was so scared—I must -have got him rattled, or he’d never have thrown that stone. Why, it was -always you he liked best, followed,” she added magnanimously. - -And yet she was puzzled, all on edge, as she had never been before. The -look Hodge had cast at her brother was unmistakable; but why?—why? What -had changed him? She never even thought of that passion common to man -and beast, interwoven with all desire, hatred—the lees of love—jealousy. - -All that evening Hector scarcely spoke. He was not so much scared as -gravely anxious in a man’s way. If that brute got him with a stone, what -would happen to Rhoda? Even supposing that there had been anyone to -consult, he could not, for the life of him, have put his fear into -words. So much a man, he was yet too much a boy for that. Terrified of -ridicule, incredulity, he hugged his secret, as that strange man-beast -hugged his—the highest and lowest—the most primitive and the most -cultured—forever uncommunicative; those in the midway the babblers. - -He was so firm in his insistence upon Rhoda changing her room that night -that she gave way, without argument, overawed by his gravity, by an odd, -chill sense of fear which hung about her. “I must have got a cold. I’ve -a sort of feeling of a goose walking over my grave,” was what she said -laughingly, half-shamefaced, accustomed as she was to attribute every -feeling to some natural cause. - -That night, soon after midnight, the brute was back in the tree. Hector -heard the rustling, then the spring and swish of a released bough. -Before he lay down he had unbolted one of the long bars from the -underneath part of his old-fashioned iron bedstead; and, now taking it -in his hand, he ran to Rhoda’s room. - -The white-washed walls and ceiling were so flooded with moonlight that -it was almost as light as day. - -Hodge was already in the room: the clothes were torn from the bed; the -cupboard doors wide open; the whole place littered with feminine attire. - -He—It—the impersonal pronoun slid into its place in the boy’s mind, and -no words of self-reproach or condemnation could have said more—stood at -the foot of the empty bed, with something white—it might have been a -chemise—in its hand, held up to its face. Hector could not catch its -expression, but there was something inexpressibly bestial in the -silhouette of its head, bent, sniffing; he could actually hear the -whistling breath. - -He would have given anything if only it had stayed, fought it out then. -But it belonged to a state too far away for that—defensive, at times -aggressive, but forever running, hiding, slinking: a thrower from among -thick boughs behind tree-trunks—and in a moment it was out of the -window, bundling over the sill, so clumsy and yet so amazingly quick. - -He could hear the swing of a bough as it caught it. There was a loud -rustle of leaves, and a stone hurtled in through the window; but that -was all. - -Hector tidied the room, tossed the scattered garments into the bottom of -the wardrobe, and re-made the bed in his awkward boy-fashion, moving -mechanically, as if in a dream; his hands busied over his petty tasks, -his mind engrossed with something so tremendous that he seemed to be two -separate people, of which the one, the greater, revolved slowly and -certainly in an unalterable orbit, quite apart from his old everyday -life, from that Hector Fane whom he had always known, thought of, spoken -of as “myself.” - -He went to his own room, put on his collar and coat—for he had lain down -upon his bed without undressing, every nerve on edge—laced up his boots -with meticulous care. He was no longer frightened or hurried; he knew -exactly what he was going to do, and that alone hung him—moving slowly, -surely—as upon a pivot. - -The moonlight was so clear that there was no need for a candle, flooding -the stairway, the study with its shabby book-shelves. - -Easy enough to take the old shot-gun from the nails over the -mantelshelf; only last holiday—years and years ago, while he was still a -child—he had been allowed to use it for wild-duck shooting—and run his -hand along the back of the writing-table drawer in search of those three -or four cartridges which he had seen there a couple of days earlier. - -The cartridges in his pocket swung against his hip as he mounted his -bicycle and rode away—guiding himself with one hand, the gun lying -heavily along his left arm; it was like someone nudging, reminding. - -The scene was entirely familiar; but what was so strange in himself lent -it an air of something new and uncanny. The winding road had a swing, -drawing him with it; the mingled mist and moonlight were sentient, -watchful, holding their breath. - -Once or twice he seemed to catch sight of a low, stooping figure amid -the rough grass and rush-tufted hollows to the left of him; but he could -not be sure until he reached the very shore, left his bicycle in the old -place. - -Then a stone grazed his shoulder, and there was a blurred scurry of -brown, from hummock to hummock, low as a hare to the ground. - -Once in the open he got a clear sight of Hodge. The far-away tide was on -the flow, but there was still a good half-mile of mud, like lead in the -silvery dawn. - -The man-beast bundled down the sandy strip of shore and out on to the -mud: ungainly, stumbling; the boy behind it—“It.” Hector held to that: -the pronoun was altogether reassuring now—something to hold to, hard as -a bone in his brain. - -On the edge of the tide it tried to turn, double; then paused, -fascinated, amazed: numb with fear of the strange level pipe pointing, -oddly threatening, the first ray of sunlight running like an arrow of -gold along the top of it. - -There was something utterly naïve and piteous in the misplaced -creature’s gesture: the way in which it stood—long arms, short, bandy -legs—moving its head uneasily from side to side; bewildered, yet -fascinated. - -“Poor beggar!” muttered Hector. He could not have said why, but he was -horribly sorry, ashamed, saddened. - -Years later he thought more clearly—“Poor beggar! After all, what did he -want but life—more life—the complete life of any man—or animal, either, -come to that!” - -As he pressed his finger to the trigger he saw the rough brown figure -throw up its arms, leap high in the air, and drop. - -Something like a red-hot iron burnt up the back of his own neck; his -head throbbed. After all, what did death matter when life was so rotten, -so inexplicable? It wasn’t that, only—only.... Well, it was beastly to -feel so tired, so altogether gone to pieces. - -With bent head he made his way, ploughing through the mud and sand, back -to the shore; sat down rather suddenly, with a feeling as though the -ground had risen up to meet him, and winding his arms round his knees, -stared out to sea; washed through and through, swept by an immense sense -of grief, a desperate regret which had nothing whatever to do with his -immediate action—the death of Hodge. - -That was something which had to be gone through with; it wasn’t that—not -exactly that.... But, oh, the futility, the waste of ... well, of -everything! - -“Rotten luck!” He shuddered as he dragged himself wearily to his feet. -He could not have gone before, not while there was the mud with “that” -on it; not even so long as the shining sands were bare. It would have -seemed too hurried, almost indecent. But now that an unbroken, -glittering sheet of water lapped the very edge of the shore, the funeral -ceremony—with all its pomp of sunrise—was over; and, turning aside, he -stumbled wearily through the rough grass to the place where he had left -his bicycle. - - - - -HATTERAS - -By A. W. MASON - - -The story was told to me by James Walker in the cabin of a seven-ton -cutter, one night when we lay anchored in Helford River. It was towards -the end of September; during this last week the air had grown chilly -with the dusk, and the sea when it lost the sun took on a leaden and a -dreary look. There was no other boat on the wooded creek and the swish -of the tide against the planks had a very lonesome sound. All these -circumstances I think provoked Walker to tell the story, but most of all -the lonely swish of the tide against the planks. For it is the story of -a man’s loneliness and the strange ways into which loneliness misled his -soul. However, let the story speak for itself. - -Hatteras and Walker had been schoolfellows, though never classmates. -Hatteras indeed was the head of the school and prophecy vaguely sketched -out for him a brilliant career in some service of importance. The -definite law, however, that the sins of the fathers shall be visited -upon the children overbore this prophecy. Hatteras, the father, -disorganized his son’s future by dropping unexpectedly through one of -the trapways of speculation into the Bankruptcy Court beneath, just two -months before Hatteras, the son, was to have gone up to Oxford. The lad -was therefore compelled to start life in a stony world with a -stock-in-trade which consisted of a schoolboy’s command of the classics, -a real inborn gift of tongues and the friendship of James Walker. - -The last item proved of the most immediate value. For Walker, whose -father was the junior partner in a firm of West African merchants, -obtained for Hatteras an employment as the bookkeeper at a branch -factory in the Bight of Benin. - -Thus the friends parted. Hatteras went out to West Africa alone, and met -with a strange welcome on the day when he landed. The incident did not -come to Walker’s ears until some time afterwards, nor when he heard of -it did he at once appreciate the effect which it had upon Hatteras. But -chronologically it comes into the story at this point, and so may as -well be immediately told. - -There was no settlement very near to the factory. It stood by itself on -the swamps of the Forcados River with the mangrove forest closing in -about it. Accordingly the captain of the steamer just put Hatteras -ashore in a boat and left him with his traps on the beach. Half-a-dozen -Kru boys had come down from the factory to receive him, but they could -speak no English, and Hatteras at this time could speak no Kru. So that -although there was no lack of conversation there was not much -interchange of thought. At last Hatteras pointed to his traps. The Kru -boys picked them up and preceded Hatteras to the factory. They mounted -the steps to the verandah on the first floor and laid their loads down. -Then they proceeded to further conversation. Hatteras gathered from -their excited faces and gestures that they wished to impart information, -but he could make neither head nor tail of a word they said, and at last -he retired from the din of their chatter through the windows of a room -which gave on to the verandah, and sat down to wait for his superior, -the agent. - -It was early in the morning when Hatteras landed and he waited until -midday patiently. In the afternoon it occurred to him that the agent -would have shown a kindly consideration if he had left a written message -or an intelligible Kru boy to receive him. It is true that the blacks -came in at intervals and chattered and gesticulated, but matters were -not thereby appreciably improved. He did not like to go poking about the -house, so he contemplated the mud banks and the mud river and the -mangrove forest, and cursed the agent. The country was very quiet. There -are few things quieter than a West African forest in the daytime. It is -obtrusively, emphatically quiet. It does not let you forget how -singularly quiet it is. And towards sundown the quietude began to jar on -Hatteras’ nerves. He was besides very hungry. To while away the time he -took a stroll round the verandah. - -He walked along the side of the houses towards the back, and as he -neared the back he heard a humming sound. The further he went the louder -it grew. It was something like the hum of a mill, only not so metallic -and not so loud; and it came from the rear of the house. - -Hatteras turned the corner and what he saw was this—a shuttered window -and a cloud of flies. The flies were not aimlessly swarming outside the -window; they streamed in through the lattice of the shutters in a busy, -practical way; they came in columns from the forest and converged upon -the shutters; and the hum sounded from within the room. - -Hatteras looked about for a Kru boy for the sake of company, but at that -moment there was not one to be seen. - -He felt the cold strike at his spine. He went back into the room in -which he had been sitting. He sat again but he sat shivering. The agent -had left no word for him.... The Kru boys had been anxious to -explain—something. The humming of the flies about that shuttered window -seemed to Hatteras a more explicit language than the Kru boys’ -chatterings. He penetrated into the interior of the house, and reckoned -up the doors. He opened one of them ever so slightly and the buzzing -came through like the hum of a wheel in a factory revolving in the -collar of a strap. He flung the door open and stood upon the threshold. -The atmosphere of the room appalled him; he felt the sweat break cold -upon his forehead and a deadly sickness in all his body. Then he nerved -himself to enter. - -At first he saw little because of the gloom. In a while, however, he -made out a bed stretched along the wall and a thing stretched upon the -bed. The thing was more or less shapeless because it was covered with a -black furry sort of rug. Hatteras, however, had little trouble in -defining it. He knew now for certain what it was that the Kru boys had -been so anxious to explain to him. He approached the bed and bent over -it, and as he bent over it the horrible thing occurred which left so -vivid an impression on Hatteras. The black furry rug suddenly lifted -itself from the bed, beat about Hatteras’ face, and dissolved into -flies. The Kru boys found Hatteras in a dead swoon on the floor -half-an-hour later, and next day, of course, he was down with the fever. -The agent had died of it three days before. - -Hatteras recovered from the fever, but not from the impression. It left -him with a prevailing sense of horror and, at first, with a sense of -disgust too. - -“It’s an obscene country,” he would say. But he stayed in it, for he had -no choice. All the money which he could save went to the support of his -family, and for six years the firm he served moved him from district to -district, from factory to factory. - -Now the second item of his stock-in-trade was a gift of tongues, and -about this time it began to bring him profit. Wherever Hatteras was -posted, he managed to pick up a native dialect, and with the dialect -inevitably a knowledge of native customs. Dialects are numerous on the -west coast, and at the end of six years Hatteras could speak as many of -them as some traders could enumerate. Languages ran in his blood; he -acquired a reputation for knowledge and was offered service under the -Niger Protectorate, so that when, two years later, Walker came out to -Africa to open a new branch factory at a settlement on the Bonny River, -he found Hatteras stationed in command there. - -Hatteras, in fact, went down to Bonny River town to meet the steamer -which brought his friend. - -“I say, Dick, you look bad,” said Walker. - -“People are not, as a rule, offensively robust about these parts.” - -“I know that; but you’re the weariest bag of bones I’ve ever seen.” - -“Well, look at yourself in a glass a year from now for my double,” said -Hatteras, and the pair went up river together. - -“Your factory is next to the Residency,” said Hatteras. “There’s a -compound to each running down to the river, and there’s a palisade -between the compounds. I’ve cut a little gate in the palisade as it will -shorten the way from one house to the other.” - -The wicket gate was frequently used during the next few months—indeed -more frequently than Walker imagined. He was only aware that, when they -were both at home, Hatteras would come through it of an evening and -smoke on his verandah. There he would sit for hours cursing the country, -raving about the lights of Piccadilly Circus, and offering his immortal -soul in exchange for a comic opera tune played upon a barrel-organ. -Walker possessed a big atlas, and one of Hatteras’ chief diversions was -to trace with his finger a bee-line across the African continent and the -Bay of Biscay until he reached London. - -More rarely Walker would stroll over to the Residency, but he soon came -to notice that Hatteras had a distinct preference for the factory and -for the factory verandah. The reason for the preference puzzled Walker -considerably. He drew a quite erroneous conclusion that Hatteras was -hiding at the Residency—well, someone whom it was prudent, especially in -an official, to conceal. He abandoned the conclusion, however, when he -discovered that his friend was in the habit of making solitary -expeditions. At times Hatteras would be absent for a couple of days, at -times for a week, and, so far as Walker could ascertain, he never so -much as took a servant with him to keep him company. He would simply -announce at night his intended departure, and in the morning he would be -gone. Nor on his return did he ever offer to Walker any explanation of -his journeys. On one occasion, however, Walker broached the subject. -Hatteras had come back the night before, and he sat crouched up in a -deck chair, looking intently into the darkness of the forest. - -“I say,” asked Walker, “isn’t it rather dangerous to go slumming about -West Africa alone?” - -Hatteras did not reply for a moment. He seemed not to have heard the -suggestion, and when he did speak it was to ask a quite irrelevant -question. - -“Have you ever seen the Horse Guards’ Parade on a dark rainy night?” he -asked; but he never moved his head, he never took his eyes from the -forest. “The wet level of ground looks just like a lagoon and the arches -a Venice palace above it.” - -“But look here, Dick!” said Walker, keeping to his subject, “you never -leave word when you are coming back. One never knows that you have come -back until you show yourself the morning after.” - -“I think,” said Hatteras slowly, “that the finest sight in the world is -to be seen from the bridge in St. James’ Park when there’s a State Ball -on at Buckingham Palace and the light from the windows reddens the lake -and the carriages glance about the Mall like fireflies.” - -“Even your servants don’t know when you come back,” said Walker. - -“Oh,” said Hatteras quietly, “so you have been asking questions of my -servants?” - -“I had a good reason,” replied Walker. “Your safety”; and with that the -conversation dropped. - -Walker watched Hatteras. Hatteras watched the forest. A West African -mangrove forest night is full of the eeriest, queerest sounds that ever -a man’s ears hearkened to. And the sounds come not so much from the -birds or the soughing of branches; they seem to come from the swamp-life -underneath the branches, at the roots of the trees. There’s a ceaseless -stir as of a myriad reptiles creeping in the slime. Listen long enough -and you will fancy that you hear the whirr and rush of innumerable -crabs, the flapping of innumerable fish. Now and again a more -distinctive sound emerges from the rest—the croaking of a bull-frog, the -whining cough of a crocodile. At such sounds Hatteras would start up in -his chair and cock his head like a dog in a room that hears another dog -barking in the street. - -“Doesn’t it sound damned wicked?” he said with a queer smile of -enjoyment. - -Walker did not answer. The light from a lamp in the room behind them -struck obliquely upon Hatteras’ face and slanted off from it in a -narrowing column until it vanished in a yellow thread among the leaves -of the trees. It showed that the same enjoyment which rang in Hatteras’ -voice was alive upon his face. His eyes, his ears, were alert, and he -gently opened and shut his mouth with a little clicking of the teeth. In -some horrible way he seemed to have something in common with, he -appeared almost to participate in, the activity of the swamp. Thus had -Walker often seen him sit, but never with the light so clear upon his -face, and the sight gave to him a quite new impression of his friend. He -wondered whether all these months his judgment had been wrong. And out -of that wonder a new thought sprang into his mind. - -“Dick,” he said, “this house of mine stands between your house and the -forest. It stands on the borders of the trees, on the edge of the swamp. -Is that why you prefer it to your own?” - -Hatteras turned his head quickly towards his companion, almost -suspiciously. Then he looked back into the darkness, and after a little -said: - -“It’s not only the things you care about, old man, which tug at you; -it’s the things you hate as well. I hate this country. I hate these -miles and miles of mangroves, and yet I am fascinated. I can’t get the -forests and the undergrowth and the swamp out of my mind. I dream of -them at night. I dream that I am sinking into that black oily batter of -mud. Listen,” and he suddenly broke off with his head stretched forward. -“Doesn’t it sound wicked?” - -“But all this talk about London?” cried Walker. - -“Oh, don’t you understand?” interrupted Hatteras roughly. Then he -changed his tone and gave his reason quietly. “One has to struggle -against a fascination of that sort. It’s devil’s work. So for all I am -worth I talk about London.” - -“Look here, Dick,” said Walker. “You had better get leave and go back to -the old country for a spell.” - -“A very solid piece of advice,” said Hatteras, and he went home to the -Residency. - -The next morning he had again disappeared. But Walker discovered upon -his table a couple of new volumes, and glanced at the titles. They were -Burton’s account of his pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca. - -Five nights afterwards Walker was smoking a pipe on the verandah when he -fancied that he heard a rubbing, scuffling sound as if someone very -cautiously was climbing over the fence of his compound. The moon was low -in the sky and dipping down toward the forest, indeed the rim of it -touched the treetops so that while a full half of the enclosure was lit -by the yellow light, that half which bordered on the forest was inky -black in shadow, and it was from the furthest corner of this second half -that the sound came. Walker leaned forward listening. He heard the sound -again, and a moment after a second sound, which left him in no doubt. -For in that dark corner he knew that a number of palisades for repairing -the fence were piled, and the second sound which he heard was a rattle -as someone stumbled against them. Walker went inside and fetched a -rifle. - -When he came back he saw a negro creeping across the bright open space -towards the Residency. Walker hailed to him to stop. Instead the negro -ran. He ran towards the wicket gate in the palisade. Walker shouted -again; the figure only ran the faster. He had covered half the distance -before Walker fired. He clutched his right forearm with his left hand, -but he did not stop. Walker fired again, this time at his legs, and the -man dropped to the ground. Walker heard his servants stirring as he ran -down the steps. He crossed quickly to the negro and the negro spoke to -him, but in English, and with the voice of Hatteras. - -“For God’s sake keep your servants off!” - -Walker ran to the house, met his servants at the foot of the steps and -ordered them back. He had shot at a monkey he said. Then he returned to -Hatteras. - -“Dicky, are you hurt?” he whispered. - -“You hit me each time you fired, but not very badly, I think.” - -He bandaged Hatteras’ arm and thigh with strips of his shirt, and waited -by his side until the house was quiet. Then he lifted him and carried -him across the enclosure to the steps, and up the steps into his -bedroom. It was a long and fatiguing process. For one thing Walker dared -make no noise and must needs tread lightly with his load; for another, -the steps were steep and rickety, with a narrow balustrade on each side -waist-high. It seemed to Walker that the day would dawn before he -reached the top. Once or twice Hatteras stirred in his arms, and he -feared the man would die then and there. For all the time his blood -dripped and pattered like heavy raindrops on the wooden steps. - -Walker laid Hatteras on his bed and examined his wounds. One bullet had -passed through the fleshy part of the forearm, the other through the -fleshy part of his right thigh. But no bones were broken and no arteries -cut. Walker lit a fire, baked some plantain leaves, and applied them as -a poultice. Then he went out with a pail of water and scrubbed down the -steps. Again he dared not make any noise; and it was close on daybreak -before he had done. His night’s work, however, was not ended. He had -still to cleanse the black stain from Hatteras’ skin, and the sun was up -before he stretched a rug upon the ground and went to sleep with his -back against the door. - -“Walker,” Hatteras called out in a loud voice, an hour or so later. - -Walker woke up and crossed over to the bed. - -“Dicky, I’m frightfully sorry. I couldn’t know it was you.” - -“That’s all right, Jim. Don’t you worry about that. What I wanted to say -was that nobody had better know. It wouldn’t do, would it, if it got -about?” - -“Oh, I am not so sure. People would think it a rather creditable -proceeding.” - -Hatteras shot a puzzled look at his friend. Walker, however, did not -notice it, and continued, “I saw Burton’s account of his pilgrimage in -your room; I might have known that journeys of the kind were just the -sort of thing to appeal to you.” - -“Oh, yes, that’s it,” said Hatteras, lifting himself up in bed. He spoke -eagerly—perhaps a thought too eagerly. “Yes, that’s it. I have always -been keen on understanding the natives thoroughly. It’s after all no -less than one’s duty if one has to rule them, and since I could speak -their lingo—” he broke off and returned to the subject which had -prompted him to rouse Walker. “But, all the same, it wouldn’t do if the -natives got to know.” - -“There’s no difficulty about that,” said Walker. “I’ll give out that you -have come back with the fever and that I am nursing you. Fortunately -there’s no doctor handy to come making inconvenient examinations.” - -Hatteras knew something of surgery, and under his directions Walker -poulticed and bandaged him until he recovered. The bandaging, however, -was amateurish, and, as a result, the muscles contracted in Hatteras’ -thigh and he limped—ever so slightly, still he limped—he limped to his -dying day. He did not, however, on that account abandon his -explorations, and more than once Walker, when his lights were out and he -was smoking a pipe on the verandah, would see a black figure with a -trailing walk cross his compound and pass stealthily through the wicket -in the fence. Walker took occasion to expostulate with his friend. - -“It’s too dangerous a game for a man to play for any length of time. It -is doubly dangerous now that you limp. You ought to give it up.” - -Hatteras made a strange reply. - -“I’ll try to,” he said. - -Walker pondered over the words for some time. He set them side by side -in his thoughts with that confession which Hatteras had made to him one -evening. He asked himself whether, after all, Hatteras’ explanation of -his conduct was sincere, whether it was really a desire to know the -native thoroughly which prompted those mysterious expeditions, and then -he remembered that he himself had first suggested the explanation to -Hatteras. Walker began to feel uneasy—more than uneasy, actually afraid -on his friend’s account. Hatteras had acknowledged that the country -fascinated him, and fascinated him through its hideous side. Was this -masquerading as a black man a further proof of the fascination? Was it, -as it were, a step downwards towards a closer association? Walker sought -to laugh the notion from his mind, but it returned and returned, and -here and there an incident occurred to give it strength and colour. - -For instance, on one occasion after Hatteras had been three weeks -absent, Walker sauntered over to the Residency towards four o’clock in -the afternoon. Hatteras was trying cases in the Court-house, which -formed the ground floor of the Residency. Walker stepped into the room. -It was packed with a naked throng of blacks, and the heat was -overpowering. At the end of the hall sat Hatteras. His worn face shone -out amongst the black heads about him white and waxy like a gardenia. - -Walker, however, thinking that the Court would rise, determined to wait -for a little. But, at the last moment, a negro was put up to answer to a -charge of participation in fetish rites. The case seemed sufficiently -clear from the outset, but somehow Hatteras delayed its conclusion. -There was evidence and unrebutted evidence of the usual details—human -sacrifice, mutilations, and the like, but Hatteras pressed for more. He -sat until it was dusk, and then had candles brought into the -Court-house. He seemed indeed not so much to be investigating the -negro’s guilt as to be adding to his own knowledge of fetish -ceremonials. And Walker could not but perceive that he took more than a -merely scientific pleasure in the increase of his knowledge. His face -appeared to smooth out, his eyes became quick, interested, almost -excited; and Walker again had the queer impression that Hatteras was in -spirit participating in the loathsome ceremonies, and participating with -an intense enjoyment. In the end the negro was convicted and the Court -rose. But he might have been convicted a good three hours before. Walker -went home shaking his head. He seemed to be watching a man deliberately -divesting himself of his humanity. It seemed as though the white man was -ambitious to decline into the black. Hatteras was growing into an -uncanny creature. His friend began to foresee a time when he should hold -him in loathing and horror. And the next morning helped to confirm him -in that forecast. - -For Walker had to make an early start down river for Bonny town, and as -he stood on the landing-stage Hatteras came down to him from the -Residency. - -“You heard that negro tried yesterday?” he asked with an assumption of -carelessness. - -“Yes, and condemned. What of him?” - -“He escaped last night. It’s a bad business, isn’t it?” - -Walker nodded in reply and his boat pushed off. But it stuck in his mind -for the greater part of that day that the prison adjoined the -Court-house and so formed part of the ground floor of the Residency. Had -Hatteras connived at his escape? Had the judge secretly set free the -prisoner whom he had publicly condemned? - -The question troubled Walker considerably during his month of absence, -and stood in the way of his business. He learned for the first time how -much he loved his friend, and how eagerly he watched for that friend’s -advancement. Each day added to his load of anxiety. He dreamed -continually of a black-painted man slipping among the tree-boles nearer -and nearer, towards the red glare of a fire in some open space secure -amongst the swamps, where hideous mysteries had their celebration. He -cut short his business and hurried back from Bonny. He crossed at once -to the Residency and found his friend in a great turmoil of affairs. - -“Jim,” said Hatteras, starting up, “I’ve got a year’s leave; I’m going -home.” - -“Dicky!” cried Walker, and he nearly wrung Hatteras’ hand from his arm. -“That’s grand news.” - -“Yes, old man, I thought you would be glad; I sail in a fortnight.” And -he did. - -For the first month Walker was glad. A year’s leave would make a new man -of Dick Hatteras, he thought, or at all events restore the old man, sane -and sound, as he had been before he came to the West African coast. -During the second month Walker began to feel lonely. In the third he -bought a banjo and learnt it during the fourth and fifth. During the -sixth he began to say to himself, “What a time poor Dick must have had -all those years with these cursed forests about him. I don’t wonder—I -don’t wonder.” He turned disconsolately to his banjo and played for the -rest of the year—all through the wet season while the rain came down in -a steady roar and only the curlews cried—until Hatteras returned. He -returned at the top of his spirits and health. Of course he was -hall-marked West African, but no man gets rid of that stamp. Moreover -there was more than health in his expression. There was a new look of -pride in his eyes, and when he spoke of a bachelor it was in terms of -sympathetic pity. - -“Jim,” said he, after five minutes of restraint, “I am engaged to be -married.” - -Jim danced round him in delight. “What an ass I have been,” he thought; -“why didn’t I think of that cure myself?” And he asked, “When is it to -be?” - -“In eight months. You’ll come home and see me through.” - -Walker agreed and for eight months listened to praises of the lady. -There were no more solitary expeditions. In fact, Hatteras seemed -absorbed in the diurnal discovery of new perfections in his future wife. - -“Yes, she seems a nice girl,” Walker commented. He found her upon his -arrival in England more human than Hatteras’ conversation had led him to -expect, and she proved to him that she was a nice girl. For she listened -for hours to his lectures on the proper way to treat Dick without the -slightest irritation and with only a faintly visible amusement. Besides -she insisted on returning with her husband to Bonny River, which was a -sufficiently courageous thing to undertake. - -For a year in spite of the climate the couple were commonplace and -happy. For a year Walker clucked about them like a hen after its -chickens, and slept the sleep of the untroubled. Then he returned to -England and from that time made only occasional journeys to West Africa. -Thus for a while he almost lost sight of Hatteras, and consequently -still slept the sleep of the untroubled. One morning, however, he -arrived unexpectedly at the settlement and at once called on Hatteras. -He did not wait to be announced, but ran up the steps outside the house -and into the dining-room. He found Mrs. Hatteras crying. She dried her -eyes, welcomed Walker, and said that she was sorry, but her husband was -away. - -Walker started, looked at her eyes, and asked hesitatingly whether he -could help. Mrs. Hatteras replied with an ill-assumed surprise that she -did not understand. Walker suggested that there was trouble. Mrs. -Hatteras denied the truth of the suggestion. Walker pressed the point -and Mrs. Hatteras yielded so far as to assert that there was no trouble -in which Hatteras was concerned. Walker hardly thought it the occasion -for a parade of manners, and insisted on pointing out that his knowledge -of her husband was intimate and dated from his schooldays. Therefore -Mrs. Hatteras gave way. - -“Dick goes away alone,” she said. “He stains his skin and goes away at -night. He tells me that he must, that it’s the only way by which he can -know the natives, and that so it’s a sort of duty. He says the black -tells nothing of himself to the white man—never. You must go amongst -them if you are to know them. So he goes, and I never know when he will -come back. I never know whether he will come back.” - -“But he has done that sort of thing on and off for years, and he has -always come back,” replied Walker. - -“Yes, but one day he will not.” - -Walker comforted her as well as he could, praised Hatteras for his -conduct, though his heart was hot against him, spoke of risks that every -man must run who serves the Empire. “Never a lotus closes, you know,” he -quoted, and went back to the factory with the consciousness that he had -been telling lies. - -It was a sense of duty that prompted Hatteras, of that Walker assured -himself he was certain, and he waited—he waited from darkness to -daybreak in his compound, for three successive nights. - -On the fourth he heard the scuffling sound at the corner of the fence. -The night was black as the inside of a coffin. Half a regiment of men -might have passed him and he not have seen them. Accordingly he walked -cautiously to the palisade which separated the enclosure of the -Residency from his own, felt along it until he reached the little gate -and stationed himself in front of it. In a few moments he thought that -he heard a man breathing, but whether to the right or the left he could -not tell; and then a groping hand lightly touched his face and drew away -again. Walker said nothing, but held his breath and did not move. The -hand was stretched out again. This time it touched his breast and moved -across it until it felt a button of Walker’s coat. Then it was snatched -away, and Walker heard a gasping indraw of the breath and afterwards a -sound as of a man turning in a flurry. Walker sprang forward and caught -a naked shoulder with one hand, a naked arm with the other. - -“Wait a bit, Dick Hatteras,” he said. - -There was a low cry, and then a husky voice addressed him respectfully -as “Daddy” in trade-English. - -“That won’t do, Dick,” said Walker. - -The voice babbled more trade-English. - -“If you’re not Dick Hatteras,” continued Walker, tightening his grasp, -“you’ve no manner of right here. I’ll give you till I count ten, and -then I shall shoot.” - -Walker counted up to nine aloud and then—— - -“Jim,” said Hatteras in his natural voice. - -“That’s better,” said Walker. “Let’s go in and talk.” - -He went up the steps and lighted the lamp. Hatteras followed him and the -two men faced one another. For a little while neither of them spoke. -Walker was repeating to himself that this man with the black skin, naked -except for a dirty loincloth and a few feathers on his head, was a white -man married to a white wife who was sleeping—nay, more likely crying—not -thirty yards away. - -Hatteras began to mumble out his usual explanation of duty and the rest -of it. - -“That won’t wash,” interrupted Walker. “What is it? A woman?” - -“Good Heaven, no!” cried Hatteras suddenly. It was plain that that -explanation was at all events untrue. “Jim, I’ve a good mind to tell you -all about it.” - -“You have got to,” said Walker. He stood between Hatteras and the steps. - -“I told you how this country fascinated me in spite of myself,” he -began. - -“But I thought,” interrupted Walker, “that you had got over that -since—why, man, you are married,” and he came across to Hatteras and -shook him by the shoulder. “Don’t you understand? You have a wife!” - -“I know,” said Hatteras. “But there are things deeper at the heart of me -than the love of woman, and one of these things is the love of horror. I -tell you, it bites as nothing else does in the world. It’s like -absinthe, that turns you sick at the beginning and that you can’t do -without once you have got the taste of it. Do you remember my first -landing? It made me sick enough at the beginning, you know. But now——” -He sat down in a chair and drew it close to Walker. His voice dropped to -a passionate whisper, he locked and unlocked his fingers with feverish -movements, and his eyes shifted and glittered in an unnatural -excitement. - -“It’s like going down to hell and coming up again and wanting to go down -again. Oh, you’d want to go down again. You’d find the whole earth pale. -You’d count the days until you went down again. Do you remember Orpheus? -I think he looked back, not to see if Eurydice was coming after him, but -because he knew it was the last glimpse he would get of hell.” At that -he broke off and began to chant in a crazy voice, wagging his head and -swaying his body to the rhythm of the lines— - - Quum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem - Ignoscenda quidem scirent si ignoscere manes; - Restitit Eurydicenque suam jam luce sub ipsa - Immemor heu! victusque animi respexit. - -“Oh, stop that!” cried Walker, and Hatteras laughed. “For God’s sake, -stop it!” - -For the words brought back to him in a flash the vision of a classroom -with its chipped desks ranged against the varnished walls, the droning -sound of the form-master’s voice, and the swish of lilac bushes against -the lower window panes on summer afternoons. Then he said, “Oh, go on, -and let’s have done with it.” - -Hatteras took up his tale again, and it seemed to Walker that the man -breathed the very miasma of the swamp and infected the room with it. He -spoke of leopard societies, murder clubs, human sacrifices. He had -witnessed them at the beginning, he had taken his share in them at the -last. He told the whole story without shame, with indeed a glowing -enjoyment. He spared Walker no details. He related them in their -loathsome completeness until Walker felt stunned and sick. “Stop,” he -said again, “stop! That’s enough.” - -Hatteras, however, continued. He appeared to have forgotten Walker’s -presence. He told the story to himself, for his own amusement, as a -child will, and here and there he laughed, and the mere sound of his -laughter was inhuman. He only came to a stop when he saw Walker hold out -to him a cocked and loaded revolver. - -“Well?” he asked. “Well?” - -Walker still offered him the revolver. - -“There are cases, I think, which neither God’s law nor man’s law seems -to have provided for. There’s your wife, you see, to be considered. If -you don’t take it I shall shoot you myself now, here, and mark you I -shall shoot you for the sake of a boy I loved at school in the old -country.” - -Hatteras took the revolver in silence, laid it on the table, fingered it -for a little. - -“My wife must never know,” he said. - -“There’s the pistol. Outside’s the swamp. The swamp will tell no tales, -nor shall I. Your wife need never know.” - -Hatteras picked up the pistol and stood up. - -“Good-bye, Jim,” he said, and half pushed out his hand. Walker shook his -head, and Hatteras went out on the verandah and down the steps. - -Walker heard him climb over the fence and then followed as far as the -verandah. In the still night the rustle and swish of the undergrowth -came quite clearly to his ears. The sound ceased, and a few minutes -afterwards the muffled crack of a pistol-shot broke the silence like the -tap of a hammer. The swamp, as Walker prophesied, told no tales. Mrs. -Hatteras gave the one explanation of her husband’s disappearance that -she knew, and returned broken-hearted to England. There was some loud -talk about the self-sacrificing energy which makes the English a -dominant race, and there you might think is the end of the story. - -But some years later Walker went trudging up the Ogowe River in Congo -Français. He travelled as far as Woermann’s factory in Njob Island, and, -having transacted his business there, pushed up stream in the hope of -opening the upper reaches for trade purposes. He travelled for a hundred -and fifty miles in a little sternwheel steamer. At that point he -stretched an awning over a whale-boat, embarked himself, his banjo and -eight blacks from the steamer, and rowed for another fifty miles. There -he ran the boat’s nose into a clay cliff close to a Fan village, and -went ashore to negotiate with the chief. - -There was a slip of forest between the village and the river banks, and -while Walker was still dodging the palm creepers which tapestried it he -heard a noise of lamentation. The noise came from the village, and was -general enough to assure him that a chief was dead. It rose in a chorus -of discordant howls, low in note and very long drawn out—wordless, -something like the howls of an animal in pain, and yet human by reason -of their infinite melancholy. - -Walker pushed forward, came out upon a hillock fronting the palisade -which closed the entrance to the single street of huts, and passed down -into the village. It seemed as though he had been expected. For from -every hut the Fans rushed out towards him, the men dressed in their -filthiest rags, the women with their faces chalked and their heads -shaved. They stopped, however, on seeing a white man, and Walker knew -enough of their tongue to ascertain that they looked for the coming of -the witch-doctor. The chief, it appeared, had died a natural death, and -since the event is of sufficiently rare occurrence in the Fan country, -it had promptly been attributed to witchcraft, and the witch-doctor had -been sent for to discover the criminal. The village was consequently in -a lively state of apprehension, for the end of those who bewitch chiefs -to death is not easy. The Fans, however, politely invited Walker to -inspect the corpse. It lay in a dark hut, packed with the corpse’s -relations, who were shouting to it at the top of their voices on the -off-chance that its spirit might think better of its conduct and return -to the body. They explained to Walker that they had tried all the usual -varieties of persuasion. They had put red pepper into the chief’s eyes -while he was dying; they had propped open his mouth with a stick; they -had burned fibres of the oil-nut under his nose. In fact they had made -his death as uncomfortable as possible, but none the less he had died. - -The witch-doctor arrived on the heels of the explanation, and Walker, -since he was powerless to interfere, thought it wise to retire for a -time. He went back to the hillock on the edge of the trees. Thence he -looked across and over the palisade, and had the whole length of the -street within his view. - -The witch-doctor entered in from the opposite end to the beating of many -drums. The first thing Walker noticed was that he wore a square-skirted -eighteenth century coat and a tattered pair of brocaded knee breeches on -his bare legs; the second was that he limped—ever so slightly. Still he -limped, and with the right leg. Walker felt a strong desire to see the -man’s face, and his heart thumped within him as he came nearer and -nearer down the street. But his hair was so matted about his cheeks that -Walker could not distinguish a feature. “If I was only near enough to -see his eyes,” he thought. But he was not near enough, nor would it have -been prudent for him to have gone nearer. - -The witch-doctor commenced the proceedings by ringing a handbell in -front of every hut. But that method of detection failed to work. The -bell rang successfully at every door. Walker watched the man’s progress, -watched his trailing limb, and began to discover familiarities in his -manner: “Pure fancy,” he argued with himself. “If he had not limped I -should have noticed nothing.” - -Then the doctor took a wicker basket, covered with a rough wooden lid. -The Fans gathered in front of him; he repeated their names one after the -other, and at each name he lifted the lid. But that plan appeared to be -no improvement, for the lid never stuck. It came off readily at each -name. Walker, meanwhile, calculated the distance a man would have to -cover who walked across country from Bonny River to the Ogowe, and he -reflected with some relief that the chances were several thousand to one -that any man who made the attempt, be he black or white, would be eaten -on the way. - -The witch-doctor turned back the big square cuffs of his sleeves as a -conjurer will do, and again repeated the names. This time, however, at -each name he rubbed the palms of his hands together. Walker was seized -with a sudden longing to rush down into the village and examine the -man’s right forearm for a bullet mark. The longing grew on him. The -witch-doctor went steadily through the list. Walker rose to his feet and -took a step or two down the hillock, when, of a sudden, at one -particular name, the doctor’s hands flew apart and waved wildly about -him. A single cry from a single voice went up out of the group of Fans. -The group fell back and left one man standing alone. He made no defence, -no resistance. Two men came forward and bound his hands and his feet and -his body with tie-tie. Then they carried him within a hut. - -“That’s sheer murder,” thought Walker. He could not rescue the victim, -he knew. But he could get a nearer view of the witch-doctor. Already the -man was packing up his paraphernalia. Walker stepped back among the -trees, and running with all his speed, made the circuit of the village. -He reached the further end of the street just as the witch-doctor walked -out into the open. - -Walker ran forward a yard or so until he, too, stood plain to see on the -level ground. The witch-doctor did see him and stopped. He stopped only -for a moment and gazed earnestly in Walker’s direction. Then he went on -again towards his own hut in the forest. - -Walker made no attempt to follow him. “He has seen me,” he thought. “If -he knows me he will come down to the river bank to-night.” Consequently, -he made the black rowers camp a couple of hundred yards down stream. He -himself remained alone in his canoe. - -The night fell noiseless and black, and the enclosing forest made it yet -blacker. A few stars burned in the strip of sky above his head. Those -stars and the glimmering of the clay bank to which the boat was moored -were the only light which Walker had. It was as dark as that night when -Walker waited for Hatteras at the wicket gate. - -He placed his gun and a pouch of cartridges on one side, an unlighted -lantern on the other, and then he took up his banjo, and again he -waited. He waited for a couple of hours, until a light crackle as of -twigs snapping came to him out of the forest. Walker struck a chord on -his banjo, and played a hymn tune. He played, “Abide with me,” thinking -that some picture of a home, of a Sunday evening in England’s summer -time, perhaps of a group of girls singing about a piano, might flash -into the darkened mind of the man upon the bank, and draw him as with -cords. The music went tinkling up and down the river, but no one spoke, -no one moved upon the bank. So Walker changed the tune, and played a -melody of the barrel organs and Piccadilly Circus. He had not played -more than a dozen bars, before he heard a sob from the bank, and then -the sound of something sliding down the clay. The next instant, a figure -shone black against the clay. The boat lurched under the weight of a -foot upon the gunwale, and a man plumped down in front of Walker. - -“Well, what is it?” asked Walker, as he laid down his banjo and felt for -a match in his pocket. - -It seemed as though the words roused the man to a perception that he had -made a mistake. He said as much hurriedly in trade-English, and sprang -up as though he would leap from the boat. Walker caught hold of his -ankle. - -“No, you don’t,” said he; “you must have meant to visit me. This isn’t -Henley,” and he jerked the man back into the bottom of the boat. - -The man explained that he had paid a visit out of the purest -friendliness. - -“You’re the witch-doctor, I suppose,” said Walker. - -The other replied that he was, and proceeded to state that he was -willing to give information about much that made white men curious. He -would explain why it was of singular advantage to possess a white man’s -eyeball, and how very advisable it was to kill anyone you caught making -Itung. The danger of passing near a cotton tree which had red earth at -the roots provided a subject which no prudent man should disregard; and -Tando, with his driver ants, was worth conciliating. The witch-doctor -was prepared to explain to Walker how to conciliate Tando. Walker -replied that it was very kind of the witch-doctor, but Tando did not -really worry him. He was, in fact, very much more worried by an -inability to understand how a native so high up the Ogowe River had -learned to speak trade-English. - -The witch-doctor waved the question aside, and remarked that Walker must -have enemies. “Pussin bad too much,” he called them. “Pussin woh-woh. -Berrah well! Ah send grand krau-krau and dem pussin die one time.” - -Walker could not recollect for the moment any “pussin” whom he wished to -die one time, whether from grand krau-krau or any other disease. “Wait a -bit,” he continued, “there is one man—Dick Hatteras!” and he struck the -match suddenly. The witch-doctor started forward as though to put it -out. - -Walker, however, had the door of the lantern open. He set the match to -the wick of the candle, and closed the door fast. The witch-doctor drew -back. Walker lifted the lantern and threw the light on his face. The -witch-doctor buried his face in his hands, and supported his elbows on -his knees. Immediately Walker darted forward a hand, seized the loose -sleeve of the witch-doctor’s coat, and slipped it back along his arm to -the elbow. It was the sleeve of the right arm, and there on the fleshy -part of the forearm was the scar of a bullet. - -“Yes,” said Walker. “By God, it is Dick Hatteras!” - -“Well?” cried Hatteras, taking his hands from his face. “What the devil -made you tum-tum ‘Tommy Atkins’ on the banjo? Damn you!” - -“Dick, I saw you this afternoon.” - -“I know, I know. Why on earth didn’t you kill me that night in your -compound?” - -“I mean to make up for that mistake to-night!” - -Walker took his rifle on to his knee. Hatteras saw the movement, leaned -forward quickly, snatched up the rifle, snatched up the cartridges, -thrust a couple of cartridges into the breech, and handed the loaded -rifle back to his old friend. - -“That’s right,” he said. “I remember. ‘There are some cases neither -God’s law nor man’s law has quite made provision for.’” And then he -stopped, with his finger on his lip. “Listen!” he said. - -From the depths of the forest there came faintly, very sweetly the sound -of church-bells ringing—a peal of bells ringing at midnight in the heart -of West Africa. Walker was startled. The sound seemed fairy work, so -faint, so sweet was it. - -“It’s no fancy, Jim,” said Hatteras, “I hear them every night, and at -matins and vespers. There was a Jesuit monastery here two hundred years -ago. The bells remain, and some of the clothes.” He touched his coat as -he spoke. “The Fans still ring the bells from habit. Just think of it! -Every morning, every evening, every midnight, I hear those bells. They -talk to me of little churches perched on hillsides in the old country, -of hawthorn lanes, and women—English women. English girls—thousands of -miles away, going along them to church. God help me! Jim, have you got -an English pipe?” - -“Yes; an English briarwood and some bird’s-eye.” - -Walker handed Hatteras his briarwood and his pouch of tobacco. Hatteras -filled the pipe, lit it at the lantern, and sucked at it avidly for a -moment. Then he gave a sigh and drew in the smoke more slowly and yet -more slowly. - -“My wife?” he asked at last, in a low voice. - -“She is in England. She thinks you dead.” - -Hatteras nodded. - -“There’s a jar of Scotch whisky in the locker behind you,” said Walker. - -Hatteras turned round, lifted out the jar and a couple of tin cups. He -poured whisky into each and handed one to Walker. - -“No, thanks,” said Walker. “I don’t think I will.” - -Hatteras looked at his companion for an instant. Then he emptied -deliberately both cups over the side of the boat. Next he took the pipe -from his lips. The tobacco was not half consumed. He poised the pipe for -a little in his hand. Then he blew into the bowl and watched the dull -red glow kindle into sparks of flame as he blew. Very slowly he tapped -the bowl against the thwart of the boat until the burning tobacco fell -with a hiss into the water. He laid the pipe gently down and stood up. - -“So long, old man,” he said, and sprang out on the clay. Walker turned -the lantern until the light made a disc upon the bank. - -“Good-bye, Jim,” said Hatteras, and he climbed up the bank until he -stood in the light of the lantern. Twice Walker raised the rifle to his -shoulder, twice he lowered it. Then he remembered that Hatteras and he -had been at school together. - -“Good-bye, Dicky,” he cried, and fired. Hatteras tumbled down to the -boat-side. The blacks down river were roused by the shot. Walker shouted -to them to stay where they were, and as soon as their camp was quiet he -stepped ashore. He filled up the whisky jar with water, tied it to -Hatteras’ feet, shook his hand, and pushed the body into the river. The -next morning he started back to Fernan Vaz. - - - - -THE RANSOM - -By CUTLIFFE HYNE - - -Methuen wriggled himself into a corner of the hut, rested his shoulders -against the _adobe_ wall, and made himself as comfortable as the -raw-hide thongs with which he was tied up would permit. “Well, Calvert,” -said he, “I hope you quite realise what an extremely ugly hole we’re -in?” - -“Garcia will hang the pair of us before sunset,” I replied, “and that’s -a certainty. My only wonder is we haven’t been strung up before this.” - -“You think a rope and a tree’s a sure thing, do you? I wish I could -comfort myself with that idea. I wouldn’t mind a simple gentlemanly dose -of hanging. But there are more things in heaven and earth, Calvert——” He -broke off and whistled drearily. - -I moistened my dry, cracked lips, and asked him huskily what he meant. - -“Torture, old man. That’s what we’re being saved for, I’m very much -afraid. A Peruvian guerilla is never a gentle-minded animal at the best -of times, and Garcia is noted as being the most vindictive brute to be -found between the Andes and the Pacific. Then if you’ll kindly remember -how you and I have harried him, and shot down his men, and cut off his -supplies, and made his life a torment and a thing of tremors for the -last four weeks, you’ll see he had got a big bill against us. If he’d -hated us less, he’d have had us shot at sight when we were caught; as it -is, I’m afraid he felt that a couple of bullets in hot blood wouldn’t -pay off the score.” - -“If he thinks the matter over calmly, he’ll not very well avoid seeing -that if he wipes us out there’ll be reprisals to be looked for.” - -“And a fat lot,” replied Methuen grimly, “he’ll care for the chance of -those. If we are put out of the way, he knows quite well that there are -no two other men in the Chilian Service who can keep him on the trot as -we have done. No, sir. We can’t scare Garcia with that yarn. You think -that because we’re alive still there’s hope. Well, I’ve sufficient faith -in my theory for this: If anyone offered me a shot through the head now, -I’d accept it, and risk the chance.” - -“You take the gloomy view. Now the man’s face is not altogether cruel. -There’s humour in it.” - -“Then probably he’ll show his funniness when he takes it out of us,” -Methuen retorted. “Remember that punishment in the ‘Mikado’? That had -‘something humorous’ in it. Boiling oil, if I don’t forget.” - -Involuntarily I shuddered, and the raw-hide ropes cut deeper into my -wrists and limbs. I had no great dread of being killed in the ordinary -way, or I should not have entered the Chilian Army in the middle of a -hot war; and I was prepared to risk the ordinary woundings of action in -return for the excitements of the fight. But to be caught, and held a -helpless prisoner, and be deliberately tortured to death by every -cruelty this malignant fiend, Garcia, could devise, was a possibility I -had not counted on before. In fact, as the Peruvians had repeatedly -given out that they would offer no quarter to us English in the Chilian -Service, we had all of us naturally resolved to die fighting rather than -be taken. And, indeed, this desperate feeling paid very well, since on -two separate occasions when Methuen and myself had been cornered with -small bodies of men, and would have surrendered if we could have been -guaranteed our lives, we went at them each time so furiously that on -each occasion we broke through and escaped. But one thinks nothing of -the chances of death and maiming at those times. There is a glow within -one’s ribs which scares away all trace of fear. - -“I suppose there’s no chance of rescue?” I said. - -“None whatever,” said Methuen, with a little sigh. “Think it over, -Calvert. We start out from the _hacienda_ with an escort of five men, -sing out our adios, and ride away to enjoy a ten days’ leave in the -mountains. The troops are left to recruit; for ten days they can drop us -out of mind. Within twelve hours of our leaving them, Garcia cleverly -ambushes us in a cañon where not three people pass in a year. The poor -beggars who form our escort are all _gastados_.” - -“Yes, but are you sure of that?” I interrupted. “I saw them all drop off -their horses when we were fired upon, but that doesn’t prove they were -dead. Some might have been merely wounded, and when the coast cleared, -it is just possible they crawled back to our post with the news. Still, -I own it’s a small chance.” - -“And you may divest yourself of even that thin rag of hope. Whilst you -were being slung senseless across a horse, I saw that man without the -ears go round with a _machete_, and—well, when the brute had done, there -was no doubt about the poor fellows being as dead as lumps of mud. Ah, -and talk of the devil——” - -The earless man swung into the hut. - -“_Buenas_, Señores,” said he mockingly. “You will have the honour now of -being tried, and I’m sure I hope you will be pleased with the result.” - -“I suppose we shall find that out later,” said Methuen with a yawn; “but -anyway, I don’t think much of your hospitality. A cup of wine now after -that ugly ride we’ve had to-day would come in very handy, or even a nip -of _aguardiente_ would be better than nothing.” - -“I fancy it might be a waste of good liquor,” was the answer; “but you -must ask Garcia. He will see to your needs.” - -A guard of twelve ragged fellows, armed with carbine and _machete_, had -followed the earless man into the hut, and two of them, whilst he -talked, had removed the seizings from our knees and ankles. They helped -us to our feet, and we walked with them into the dazzling sunshine -outside. - -“I’ll trouble some of you for my hat,” said Methuen, when the glare -first blazed down on him; and then, as no one took any notice of the -request, he lurched against the earless man with a sudden swerve, and -knocked his sombrero on to the brown baked turf. “Well, I’ll have yours, -you flea-ridden _ladron_,” said he; “it’s better than nothing at all. -Pick up the foul thing, and shake it, and put it on my head.” - -The guerilla bared his teeth like an animal, and drew a pistol. I -thought he would have shot my comrade out of hand, and by his look I -could see that Methuen expected it. Indeed, he had deliberately invited -the man to that end. But, either because the nearness of Garcia and fear -of his discipline stayed him, or through thought of a finer vengeance -which was to come, the earless man contented himself by dealing a -battery of kicks and oaths, and bidding our guards to ward us more -carefully. - -In this way, then, we walked along a path between two fields of vines, -and passed down the straggling street of the village which the guerillas -had occupied, and brought up in a little _plaza_ which faced the -white-walled chapel. In the turret a bell was tolling dolefully with -slow strokes, and as the sound came to me through the heated air, it did -not require much imagination to frame it into an omen. In the centre of -the _plaza_ was a vast magnolia tree, filled with scented wax-like -flowers, and splashed with cones of coral-pink. - -We drew up before the _piazza_ of the principal house. Seated under its -shade in a split-cane rocker, Garcia awaited us, a small, meagre, dark -man, with glittering teeth, and fingers lemon-coloured from cigarette -juice. - -He stared at us and spat; and the trial, such as it was, began. - -I must confess that the proceedings astonished me. Animus there -certainly was; the guerillas as a whole were disposed to give us short -shrift; but their chief insisted on at least some parade of justice. The -indictment was set forward against us: We had shot, hanged, and harried, -and in fact used all the harshness of war. Had we been Chilians in the -Chilian Service, this might have been pardonable; but we were aliens -from across the sea; mere freebooters, fighting, not for a country, but -each for his own hand; and as such we were beyond the pale of military -courtesy. We had earned a punishment. Had we any word to speak why this -should not be given? - -Garcia looked towards us expectantly, and then set himself to roll a -fresh cigarette. - -I shrugged my shoulders. It seemed useless to say anything. - -Methuen said: “Look here, sir! You’ve got us, there is no mistake about -that. It seems to me you’ve two courses before you, and they are these: -Either, you can kill us, more or less barbarously, in which case you -will raise a most pestilential hunt at your heels; or, you can put us up -to ransom. Now neither Calvert here, nor myself, are rich men; but if -you choose to let us go with sound skins, we’re prepared to pay ten -thousand Chilian dollars apiece for our passports. Now, does that strike -you?” - -Garcia finished rolling his cigarette, and lit it with care. He inhaled -a deep breath of smoke. - -“Señor,” he said (the words coming out from between his white teeth with -little puffs of vapour), “you do not appear to understand. You fight as -a soldier of fortune, and I am merely in arms as a patriot. I am no -huckster to traffic men’s lives for money, nor am I a timorous fool to -be scared into robbing a culprit of his just dues.” - -“Very well, then,” said Methuen, “murder the pair of us.” - -Garcia smiled unpleasantly. “You may be a very brave man,” said he, “but -you are not a judicious one. To a judge less just than myself this -insolence might have added something to your punishment; but as it is I -shall overlook what you have said, and only impose the penalty I had -determined upon before you spoke.” - -He lifted his thin yellow fingers, and drew a fresh breath of smoke. -Then he waved the cigarette towards the magnolia tree in the centre of -the _plaza_. “You see that bough which juts out towards the chapel?” - -“It’s made for a gallows,” said Methuen. - -“Precisely,” said the guerilla, “and it will be used as one inside ten -minutes. I shall string one of you up by the neck, to dangle there -between heaven and earth. The other man shall have a rifle and -cartridges, and if, standing where he does now, he can cut with a bullet -the rope with which his friend is hanged, then you shall both go free.” - -“I hear you say it,” said Methuen. “In other words you condemn one of us -to be strangled slowly without chance of reprieve. But what guarantee -have we that you will not slit the second man’s throat after you have -had your sport out of him?” - -Garcia sprang to his feet with a stamp of passion, and the chair rolled -over backwards. “You foul adventurer!” he cried. “You paid man-killer!” -and then he broke off with a bitter “Pah!” and folded his arms, and for -a minute held silence till he got his tongue in hand again. “Señor,” he -said coldly, “my country’s wrongs may break my heart, but they can never -make me break my word. I may be a hunted guerilla, but I still remain a -gentleman.” - -“I beg your pardon,” said Methuen. - -“We will now,” continued Garcia icily, “find out which of you two will -play which part. Afterwards I will add another condition which may lend -more skill to what follows. I will not coerce you. Kindly choose between -yourselves which of you will hang and which will shoot.” - -My comrade shrugged his shoulders. “I like you, Calvert, old man,” said -he, “but I’m not prepared to dance on nothing for you.” - -“It would be simplest to toss for exit,” I said. - -“Precisely; but, my dear fellow, I have both hands trussed up, and no -coin.” - -“Pray let me assist you,” said Garcia. “Señor Calvert, may I trouble you -for an expression of opinion?” - -He leant over the edge of the _piazza_, and span a dollar into the air. -I watched it with a thumping heart, and when for an instant it paused, a -dazzling splash of brightness against the red-tiled roof, I cried: -“Heads!” - -The coin fell with a faint thud in the dust a yard from my feet. - -“Well?” said Methuen. - -“I congratulate you, old fellow. I swing.” - -He frowned and made no reply. Garcia’s voice broke the silence. -“_Bueno_, Señor Methuen,” he said. “I advise you to shoot straight, or -you will not get home even now. You remember I said there was still -another condition. Well, here you are: you must cut your friend down -with a bullet before he is quite dead, or I’ll string you up beside -him.” - -Methuen let up a short laugh. “Remember what I said about that fellow in -‘the Mikado,’ Calvert? You see where the ‘humour’ comes in? We’ve had -that coin spun for nothing. You and I must change positions.” - -“Not at all. I take what I’ve earned.” - -“But I say yes. It works this way: I took it that the man who was -hanging stood a delicate chance anyway, and I didn’t feel generous -enough to risk it. But now the Señor here has put in the extra clause, -the situation is changed altogether. You aren’t a brilliant shot, old -man, but you may be able to cut me down with a bullet if you remember -what you’re firing for, and shoot extra straight. But it’s a certain -thing that I couldn’t do it if I blazed away till Doomsday. The utmost I -could manage would be to fluke a pellet into your worthy self. So you -see I must wear the hemp, and you must apply your shoulder to the rifle -butt. Laugh, you fool,” he added in English. “Grin, and say something -funny, or these brutes will think we care for them.” - -But I was incapable of further speech. I could have gibed at the -prospect of being hanged myself, but the horror of this other ordeal -turned me sick and dumb. And at what followed I looked on mutely. - -There was a well at one side of the plaza, and the earless man went and -robbed the windlass of its rope. With clumsy landsman’s fingers he -formed a noose, took it to the great magnolia tree, and threw the loose -end over the projecting branch. The bell of the little white chapel -opposite went on tolling gravely, and they marched my friend up to his -fate over the sun-baked dust. They passed a thong round his ankles; the -earless man fitted the noose to his throat; a dozen of the guerillas -with shouts and laughter laid hold of the hauling part of the line; and -then a voice from behind fell upon my ear. Garcia was speaking to me. -With a strain I dragged my eyes away from the glare of the _plaza_, and -listened. He was smiling wickedly. - -“——, and so your pluck has oozed away?” he was saying, as the cigarette -smoke billowed up from between the white walls of his teeth. “Well, of -course, if you do not care for the game, you can throw up your hand at -once. You’ve only to say the word, and you can be dangling on that bough -there inside a couple of minutes. It’s quite strong enough to carry more -fruit than it will bear just now. But it’s rather hard on your friend -not to try——” - -My wits came to me again. “You dolt!” I cried; “how can I shoot with my -arms trussed up like this? If the whole thing is not a mockery, cut me -adrift and give me a rifle.” - -He beckoned to one of his men, and the fellow came up and cut off the -lashings from my wrists and elbows; and then, with a sour smile, he -motioned to some of the others, who drew near and held their weapons at -the ready. “I dare wager, Señor Calvert,” he said, “that if you’d me for -a mark you would not score a miss. So I wish to insure that you do not -shoot in this direction.” He raised his voice, and shouted across the -baking sunlight: “Quite ready here, _amigos_. So up with the target.” - - * * * * * - -Now up to this point I am free to own that since our capture I had cut a -pretty poor figure. I had not whined, but at the same time I had not -seen my way to put on Methuen’s outward show of careless brazen courage. -But when I watched the guerillas tighten on the rope and sway him up -till his stretched-out feet swung a couple of hand-spans above the -ground, then my coolness returned to me, and my nerves set like icicles -in their sockets. He was sixty yards away, and at that distance, the -well-rope dwindled to the bigness of a shoemaker’s thread. Moreover, the -upper two-thirds of it was almost invisible, because it hung before a -background of shadows. But the eighteen inches above my poor friend’s -head stood out clear and distinct against the white walls of the chapel -beyond, and as it swayed to pulsing of the body beneath, it burnt itself -upon my eyesight till all the rest of the world was blotted out in a red -haze. I never knew before how thoroughly a man could concentrate -himself. - -They handed me the rifle, loaded and cocked. It was a single-shot -Winchester, and I found out afterwards, though I did not know it then, -that either through fiendish wish to further hamper my aim, or through -pure forgetfulness, they had left the sights cocked up at three hundred -yards. But that did not matter; the elevation was a detail of minor -import; and besides, I was handling the weapon as a game shot fires, -with head up, and eyes glued on the mark, and rifle-barrel following the -eyes by instinct alone. You must remember that I had no stationary mark -to aim at. My poor comrade was writhing and swaying at the end of his -tether, and the well-rope swung hither and thither like some contorted -pendulum. - -Once I fired, twice I fired, six times, ten times, and still the rope -remained uncut, and the bullets rattled harmlessly against the white -walls of the chapel beyond. With the eleventh shot came the tinkle of -broken glass, and the bell, after a couple of hurried nervous clangs, -ceased tolling altogether. With the thirteenth shot a shout went up from -the watching crowd. I had stranded the rope, and the body which dangled -beneath the magnolia tree began slowly to gyrate. - -Then came a halt in the firing. I handed the Winchester back to the -fellow who was reloading, but somehow or other the exploded cartridge -had jammed in the breach. I danced and raged before him in my passion of -hurry, and the cruel brutes round yelled in ecstasies of merriment. Only -Garcia did not laugh. He re-rolled a fresh cigarette, with his thin -yellow fingers, and leisurely rocked himself in the split-cane chair. -The man could not have been more unmoved if he had been overlooking a -performance of Shakespeare. - -At last I tore the Winchester from the hands of the fellow who was -fumbling with it, and clawed at the jammed cartridge myself, breaking my -nails and smearing the breech-lock with blood. If it had been welded -into one solid piece, it could scarcely have been firmer. But the thrill -of the moment gave my hands the strength of pincers. The brass case -moved from side to side; it began to crumple; and I drew it forth and -hurled it from me, a mere ball of shapeless, twisted metal. Then one of -the laughing brutes gave me another cartridge, and once more I -shouldered the loaded weapon. - -The mark was easier now. The struggles of my poor friend had almost -ceased, and though the well-rope still swayed, its movements were -comparatively rhythmical, and to be counted upon. I snapped down the -sights, put the butt-plate to my shoulder, and cuddled the stock with my -cheek. Here for the first time was a chance of something steadier than a -snap-shot. - -I pressed home the trigger as the well-rope reached one extremity of its -swing. Again a few loose ends sprang from the rope, and again the body -began slowly to gyrate. But was it Methuen I was firing to save, or was -I merely wasting shot to cut down a mass of cold dead clay? - -I think that more agony was compressed for me into a few minutes then -than most men meet with in a lifetime. Even the onlooking guerillas were -so stirred that for the first time their gibing ceased, and two of them -of their own accord handed me cartridges. I slipped one home and closed -the breech-lock. The perspiration was running in a stream from my chin. -Again I fired. Again the well-rope was snipped, and I could see the -loosened strands ripple out as a snake unwraps itself from a branch. - -One more shot. God in heaven, I missed! Why was I made to be a murderer -like this? - -Garcia’s voice came to me coldly. “Your last chance, Señor. I can be -kept waiting here no longer. And I think you are wasting time. Your -friend seems to have quitted us already.” - -Another cartridge. I sank to one knee and rested my left elbow on the -other. The plaza was hung in breathless silence. Every eye was strained -to see the outcome of the shot. The men might be inhuman in their -cruelty, but they were human enough in their curiosity. - -The body span to one end of its swing: I held my fire. It swung back, -and the rifle muzzle followed. Like some mournful pendulum it passed -through the air, and then a glow of certainty filled me like a drink. I -knew I could not miss that time; and I fired; and the body, in a limp -and shapeless heap, fell to the ground. - -With a cry I threw the rifle from me and raced across the sunlit dust. -Not an arm was stretched out to stop me. Only when I had reached my -friend and loosened that horrible ligature from his neck, did I hear -voices clamouring over my fate. - -“And now this other Inglese, your excellency,” the earless man said. -“Shall we shoot him from here, or shall we string him up in the other’s -place?” - -But the answer was not what the fellow expected. Garcia replied to him -in a shriek of passion. “You foul, slaughtering brute,” he cried, -“another offer like that and I’ll pistol you where you stand. You heard -me pass my word: do you dream that I could break it? They have had their -punishment, and if we see one another again, the meeting will be none of -my looking for. We leave this _puebla_ in five minutes. See to your -duties. Go.” - -The words came to me dully through the heated air. I was almost mad with -the thought that my friend was dead, and that the fault was mine, -_mine_, mine alone! - -I listened for his breaths; they did not come. I felt for a heart-throb; -there was not so much as a flutter. His neck was seared by a ghastly -ring. His face was livid. And yet I would not admit even then that he -was dead. With a cry I seized his arms, and moved them first above his -head till he looked like a man about to dive, and then clapped them -against his sides, repeating this an infinite number of times, praying -that the airs I drew through his lungs might blow against some -smouldering spark of humanity, and kindle it once more into life. - -The perspiration rolled from me; my mouth was as a sandpit; the heavy -scent of the magnolia blossoms above sickened me with its strength; the -sight departed from my eyes. I could see nothing beyond a small circle -of the hot dust around, which waved and danced in the sunlight, and the -little green lizards which came and looked at me curiously, and forgot -that I was human. - -And then, of a sudden, my comrade gave a sob, and his chest began to -heave of itself without my laborious aid. And after that for a while I -knew very little more. The sun-baked dust danced more wildly in the -sunshine, the lizards changed to darker colours, the light went out, and -when next I came to my senses Methuen was sitting up with one hand -clutching at his throat, looking at me wildly. - -“What has happened?” he gasped. “I thought I was dead, and Garcia had -hanged me. Garcia——No one is here. The _puebla_ seems deserted. Calvert, -tell me.” - -“They have gone,” I said. “We are alive. We will get away from here as -soon as you can walk.” - -He rose to his feet, swaying. “I can walk now. But what about you?” - -“I am an old man,” I said, “wearily old. In the last two hours I have -grown a hundred years. But I think I can walk also. Yes, look, I am -strong. Lean on my arm. Do you see that broken window in the chapel? -When I fired through that, the bell stopped tolling.” - -“Let us go inside the chapel for a minute before we leave the village,” -said Methuen. “We have had a very narrow escape, old man. I—I—feel -thankful.” - -There was a faint smell of incense inside that little white-walled -chapel. The odour of it lingers by me still. - - - - -THE OTHER TWIN - -By EDWIN PUGH - - -It was the hour of siesta. Santa Plaza lay blistering, sweltering, in -the white-hot glare of the noontide sun. The dust lay thick on the roads -and terraces, the copings and the roofs of the houses, like untrodden -snow. The sea shone like a shield of brass reflecting a brassy sky. -There was not the least sign of movement anywhere. - -Then Franker, the Englishman, came limping along the Lido, sat down in -the shadow of the old sea-wall, and examined with grave solicitude a -swollen and blistered foot swathed in filthy, blood-stained rags. - -This Franker had once been a well-known figure in all the ports of those -far-off southern seas. It was whispered that in the long ago he had been -a gentleman. Now he was just the sport of circumstance, a jack of all -trades, so long as they were indifferent honest; sailorman, stock-rider, -storekeeper, croupier, crimp, anything that happened along in his hour -of need. But lately he had disappeared from his old haunts, and it was -unlikely that any of his old acquaintances would have recognised in that -ragged and gaunt, unwashed and black-bearded wastrel on the beach the -spruce adventurer of former days. - -He had the look of a hunted creature. There was fear in his eyes. Even -as he sat there nursing his aching foot, parched and hungry, haggard and -weary, his head was perpetually turning from side to side, and ever and -again he looked over his shoulder, to left and right, as if he were in -dread expectation that at any moment some enemy might creep upon him -unawares. And, indeed, he was in parlous case. For he had killed a man, -not in itself an exceptional incident of course—only in this instance -the man was one of twins, and the other twin had vowed a vendetta -against him. - -These twins were named Bibi and Bobo, and the extraordinary likeness -between them was accentuated by their habit of always dressing alike, -talking alike, thinking alike. There were some who said that they could -distinguish one twin from the other, but these were foolish, -vainglorious men. The thing was manifestly impossible. Even Franker did -not know whether it was Bibi or Bobo he had killed. - -It happened in a gambling den in Suranim, up country. They were playing -the childish game of boule, and some silly dispute had arisen. Franker -had lost his temper, and knocked one of the twins down. For once in a -way the other twin had not been present, or most assuredly Franker would -have been chived in the back before he could turn round. As it was, he -saw his fallen adversary rise slowly, slowly draw a red smear across his -face with the back of his hand, and then quicken on a sudden into antic -activity. There was the flash of a knife. Franker dodged. The other men -stood back to watch the fun—not to see fair play. Fair play was a jewel -of little value in the estimation of that crew. A moment Franker -hesitated, then whipped out his gun and fired point-blank at the twin. -He dropped dead. Before the smoke had cleared away or the echoes of the -report had subsided into stillness, Franker had left the gambling-house -and was running for his life into the wilderness. - -There, for three days, he lost himself. That was his idea: to lose -himself. He wanted to be lost, utterly lost to the world. For he knew -that so long as the other twin lived his own chances of living were -reduced to the last recurring decimal. Bibi or Bobo—whichever it -was—would never rest until he had wrought vengeance on his brother’s -murderer. Though it wasn’t a murder, of course, but a duel in which each -had taken the same risk of death. If Franker had not killed Bibi or -Bobo, Bibi or Bobo would have killed him. He wished he knew which of the -twins it was he had killed. So idiotic not to know. So confusing. It -made your head ache, wondering. And in your sleep you dreamed of -horrible, two-headed monsters coming at you crabwise, with arms and legs -all round them. - -On the third day of his sojourn in the wilderness the other twin had -very nearly caught him napping. He had sunk down exhausted in a sandy -hollow fringed with palms, and for a moment closed his eyes. And in that -moment the redness of his lowered eyelids had been suddenly clouded by a -shadow. In an instant he was on his feet, wide awake again. And there -was the figure of the other twin in the act of flinging itself upon him. -He fired an aimless shot at that black apparition, then bolted. - -And all that day and all that night he had wound and wound an intorted -course through virgin forest, hoping thus to shake off his pursuer. And -all that day and all that night he had known that his pursuer followed -him, shadowed him, stalked him, with a merciless delight in that -persecution born of an insatiate hate. - -Next day Franker, having doubled on his tracks, found himself on a -quayside, and had shipped as a forecastle hand on an old iron hooker -bound for the Caribs with a mixed cargo. He never knew or cared what -that mixed cargo consisted of. He was too busy sleeping, when he wasn’t -too sore from being kicked into wakefulness, to bother about trivial -details. He could have left the ship at the first of the Caribs, but an -island is a prison, and his yearning was for wide free spaces where a -man can at least get a run for his money. So he had returned on the -hooker, and had been paid off with the lurid compliments of the purser, -and was once more adrift. - -But the story of his wanderings and adventures over the greater part of -the southern hemisphere would fill many books. Months passed, a year -passed, two years, and all the while Franker was dogged by the avenger. -Ever and again, just when he thought that he had at last shaken off that -deadly pursuit, the other twin turned up again. And gradually it was -borne in upon him that the other twin might have killed him long since -had he wished. He had had numberless opportunities, and had not taken -them. This puzzled Franker a bit, and then he hit upon the truth. There -is more joy in the hunting than in the killing. There is more cat-like -satisfaction in the slow torture of its victim than in the crunching up -of its dead bones. He began to think of the other twin as a cat-like -creature, exercising a cruelty of the mind far more subtle and devilish -than any mere crude cruelty of tooth and claw. When the avenger tired of -the sport, then he would strike. And not till then. Meanwhile, Franker -was condemned to a daily round of unremitting vigilance, ceaseless -watchfulness, unending apprehension. - -He had been a big man, strong and fearless, with bold eyes and the voice -of a bull. Now he had become a shuffling, whimpering, trembling thing of -nerves and tears, who dared look no one in the face lest it should be -the face of his enemy. In the old days, with no other resources than his -health and vigour, bodily and mental, he had used to take chances with -an overbearing recklessness, and thrust and curse his way through the -mob of other roustabouts like unto himself, with whom he had fought for -the means of existence. And he had been—he realised that now—quite happy -then. There were times when he told himself that he would stand fast -against his pursuer, force him into the open, then turn upon him and -rend him, and so make an end of this long-drawn-out agony. But when the -moment came his wits fled, he was distraught and afraid, he could think -only of flight. - -It was now a full fortnight since he had seen Bibi—or Bobo. But there -had been other fortnights during which he had not seen him. And always, -inevitably, he had reappeared. So would he reappear again. - -Franker gazed out from the shadow of the old seawall across the -glittering, limitless sea, and wished that he might drown himself in its -depths. But he was not yet quite mad enough for that. Though life had -become as a nightmare to him, and death as the awakening to the cool, -calm peace of dawn; though life offered nothing but torment, and death -offered surcease of pain, he still clung to life. It was in the nature -of his being to cling to life. He was not of the stuff that gives in. - -But if only he could rest awhile! If only he could lie still in some -sheltered place, safe from his enemy, and thus regain his old control -over his faculties, recuperate his strength! - -At the western end of the Lido, where the coast swept in a wide curve to -the lighthouse and the harbour, there was a long white wall. And as he -remembered what that wall enclosed, what it signified, Franker had an -inspiration. His face was suddenly irradiated. He laughed aloud. What a -fool!—God in Heaven!—what a fool he had been not to think of that -before! He rose on tremulous legs and began to shamble along the beach -towards that far-off haven of refuge. - -The prison official, in his gaudy livery of gold and scarlet and his -immense cocked hat, conducted him to the chief inspector’s office. - -“Yes?” - -Franker desired to be sworn. He had a crime to confess: it had troubled -his conscience for years. - -“Yes?” - -An affair of opium smuggling, ship’s papers forged, and customs burked. -It was a true story enough, only Franker himself had not been implicated -in it. The police had been so long on the track of that crime they had -given it up as hopeless. And now here there was the chief criminal, a -fine fat bird, dropping into the net of his own free will. The chief -inspector rubbed his dry palms together as he thought of the luscious -report he would send to the magistracy. - -Then he committed Franker to the custody of another prison official, -less gaudy than the first, and Franker was led away to the cell. - -This was a big, bare, barn-like place of stone, that sometimes contained -as many as twenty prisoners huddled indiscriminately together. But just -now crime was slack. Franker had the whole cell to himself. - -As the gaoler slammed the door on him he fell on his knees with a -weeping face, and offered up thanks for this blessed refuge, this safe -harbour of retreat from his relentless enemy, this sanctuary. Here, at -last, he was free from the fear of pursuit. Here, during the year or two -of his imprisonment, he could rest and sleep, rest his mind and find his -sleep that sweet relief from the tortures of the last two years which -would gradually restore him again to health and sanity. - -Even as he prayed he toppled down face forward and lay there quite -still, breathing softly, evenly, in peaceful slumber. - -The light was fading, there was a red stain of sunset on the wall when -he awoke. It was a rattling and clanging of bolts and chains that had -roused him. He sat up, blinking stupidly, at first not knowing where he -was. Then, as he remembered, he shed tears of joy again, and clasped his -hands together in an access of delight. - -The sounds drew nearer. The heavy, barred door of the prison chamber was -flung open. He saw the burly figure of a gaoler over-shadowing another -smaller figure that seemed to be precipitated from behind into the misty -vastness of the cell. It fell head-long at Franker’s feet, and lay there -stirring feebly like a wounded beetle. - -Franker watched his writhings ... and a slow, cold horror grew upon him. - -His fellow-prisoner raised himself on all fours, then sat up and -squatted there, cross-legged, like a Chinese bonze. - -It was Bibi—or Bobo. - -Franker uttered a cry. - -“And hast thou found me, O mine enemy!” - -The other twin had leapt to his feet. He shrank back, crouching, -snarling, spitting like a cat. The moment for the happy dispatch was -come at last. He drew his knife and fingered its keen blade lovingly, -then came mincing on tiptoe towards Franker. - -As Franker’s hands closed round his throat he drove the blade deep into -Franker’s breast. - - - - -THE NARROW WAY - -By R. ELLIS ROBERTS - - - - - 1 - - - - -At his confirmation he had annoyed the Bishop of London (at that time it -was Frederick Temple) by insisting on taking the additional names of -Alfonso Mary Alexander. He had surprised him by the resolute manner in -which he had answered his questions about the origin of taking names at -confirmation; and enraged him by his explanation that he desired to be -called Alexander in memory of that great Pope, the Lord Alexander VI, -who had put the whole Christian world under an obligation by his -discovery of the devotion of the Angelus. “This devotion,” the boy -murmured to the astounded Bishop, “as your Lordship no doubt knows, has -been from eternity the privilege of the Holy Angels, and was not -entrusted to men until the proximity of the horrible heresies of the -German reformation rendered the patronage of Mary necessary for the -protection of her son.” The Bishop’s chaplain had tried to prevent Frank -Lascelles’ indiscretion; but Temple’s abrupt gesture had hindered his -efforts. When Lascelles finished the Bishop gazed at him in silence for -a minute. - -“Well, I hope you’ll live to grow out of this foolery. But you know your -rights and you shall have ’em.” - -Temple, was, as his old foes had discovered years before, eminently -just. - -More than twenty years had passed since that confirmation. Frank Alfonso -Mary Alexander Lascelles had gone to Oxford and to Ely, and had been -ordained to a small country parish in that diocese. After two years of -his curacy, an injudicious layman presented him to the living of S. Uny -and S. Petroc in the north of Cornwall. He had been there now for over -nineteen years. When he had come he found his church empty; now it was -full. It was full of children and boys. Occasionally a few mothers, and, -when he was sober, the village drunkard, and, when she was penitent, the -prostitute from the Church Town, came to Mass as well; but generally the -Church of S. Uny, down by the beach, was filled only by children and -boys. - -This result Frank Lascelles had been long in attaining. The parish he -served was predominantly Methodist. He had found a congregation of -three—the publican, the ostler of the hotel, and an old maiden lady who -rang the bell, and called herself the pew-opener. Lascelles soon shocked -the respectability of the publican and the Protestantism of the ostler: -but the old lady remained faithful to him. She did not stir when he had -the three-decker cut down, and a new altar reared at the East end. She -seemed to welcome the great images, Our Lady of the Immaculate -Conception, The Sacred Heart, S. Joseph and S. Anthony which Lascelles -put up in his church. She did not care whether he said Mass in Latin or -English; and incense and holy water both left her tranquil. It was -otherwise with the village. Though the Methodists never entered the -church, except for a wedding or a funeral, they thought they had a right -to control its services and its priest. There were stormy Easter -vestries; there was a Protestant churchwarden. One horrible day the -fishermen broke into the church and took out the images and threw them -down the cliff: by next week new ones were in their places. Lascelles -was boycotted by his parishioners, except a few would-be bold spirits; -and was outlawed, in the genial English way, by his Bishop; but he stuck -at his job, went on saying offices to an empty church, and singing Mass -to his pew-opener and an occasional visitor. Then after five years or so -the change began. - -It was not along the usual lines of such changes. Generally priests of -Lascelles’ religion are eager, masculine people who soon win over the -more turbulent elements in the parish, and put them, too, in search of -the great adventure of Christianity. But Lascelles, though he had grown -up, still remained the boy who had chosen Liguori and Alexander for his -patrons. He was obsessed with the reality of the spiritual world, of -good and evil. His pillow was wet with the tears he shed for the sins of -his parish. He was horrified at the evil of the world, and yet -constitutionally unable to defy it in any active way. He had only one -strong human affection—and that was a great love for children. - -At first this was not reciprocated. His odd figure, his shuffling walk, -his stoop and his occasional outbursts of anger produced ridicule and -fear rather than love. Then one child somehow found how large the heart -of him was; and then another, and then another. He had won the children. -But this would have availed him little had it not been for the arrival -at S. Uny of the Rev. Paul Trengrowse. Mr. Trengrowse came to minister -to the Primitives about three years after Lascelles’ appointment to the -parish. He was young, keen, and sincere. He had not been long in the -village when the leading members of his congregation told him of the -sins of the parish priest, and horrors of the parish church. Trengrowse -prayed for light. He disliked interfering with the affairs of an alien -church; but, if half he was told was true, Lascelles must be fought. So -he paid a visit to the church, which was always open, and was duly -distressed at the idols he saw there. - -As he was gazing at the smirking fatuity of S. Anthony, he heard a -footstep. It was Lascelles who was coming from the sacristy to the -altar. Fortunately, before he began Mass, Lascelles looked down the -church and saw “a congregation.” So he said Mass in English. - -Now Trengrowse was no ordinary minister. He was a man of personal -holiness, and of real devotion; and that in his spirit which was sincere -and mystical recognised in the Popish-seeming priest, muttering his -Mass, a kindred soul. Lascelles’ absorption in his work, his grave, yet -joyful solemnity, his keen sense of the other world made an immense -effect on Trengrowse. The Mass proceeded, and when Trengrowse heard -“Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven,” he -felt that he had had the answer to his prayer. This man was a Christian, -however erroneous he might be in details. - -So the next Sunday the Primitives who were hoping for a strong sermon -against the Scarlet Woman, were disagreeably surprised. “Mr. Lascelles -may be wrong. I think he is wrong, sadly wrong, in many things; but he -du love the Lord, and he du worship Him. And, brethren, no man calls -Jesus Lord save by the Holy Ghost. Let us pray for Mr. Lascelles and the -church people of S. Uny; and that we may all be led along the narrow way -to everlasting life.” - -Had Trengrowse been a man of less character he might have failed in his -defence of Lascelles. But he was an acceptable preacher, and a man whose -plain love of his religion it was impossible to doubt. So, first with -grumbling, later with a ready acquiescence, the villagers of S. Uny -followed his lead. - -The result was odd. Lascelles attracted the children more and more; and -his services attracted them. This worried Trengrowse not a little; but -when one of his congregation said scornfully, “Those bit games to the -church be only fit for babes,” he looked gravely at him and replied, -“Ah! Eli, but the book says ‘Unless ye become as little children.’” This -silenced Eli, but it did not silence Trengrowse’s own heart. How was it -Lascelles could do anything with children, a good deal with boys up to -fifteen or so, and nothing with men and women, and little with girls? -Lascelles’ own explanation was simple. His Bishop would not confirm his -children until they were thirteen. Lascelles presented them year after -year when they were six or seven. He preached an amazing sermon on the -three great aids to the Devil in the parish of S. Uny—and the three -heads of his sermon were: Lust, Hypocrisy and the Lord Bishop. The more -respectable of the neighbouring clergy were furious, but the Bishop, who -was a simple, humble-minded man (quite unlike to the ex-head-master who -had inducted Lascelles), refused to take any notice of the attack; but -also refused to relax his rule about the age of confirmation candidates. -The Archdeacon told Lascelles that his parish was the plague-spot of the -diocese, and Lascelles retorted that in a mass of corruption any sign of -health looks ominous and unusual. But, although he kept up a brave front -to the disapprovers, his failure with his people galled him. He would -not have minded if they had still been actively hostile. But that had -long ceased. They were now fond of their priest. They liked and shared -in his notoriety. They supported him against the officials; and when a -malicious Protestant from London attempted to stir up a revolt against -Lascelles, he was promptly put into the harbour; and Trengrowse started -a petition to the Bishop, expressing the affection “all we, whether -church people or Methodists, feel for Mr. Lascelles.” - -Lascelles’ philosophy refused to permit him to see in his failure -evidences of his incapacity for his work. He had the proud humility of -the perfect priest. Regarding himself as a mere channel for divine -grace, he forgot that his personality was so distinctive that it -affected the way in which grace reached his people. Once an old friend -had tried to make him see this; but the task was hopeless. - -“My dear fellow,” said Lascelles, “I don’t see what you mean. All they -want is the Gospel. And that I give them. I say Mass for them. I will -hear their confessions. I instruct them. I lead their devotions. All -beside is mere human embellishment. No doubt a more competent man would -be more pleasing to them, but he could not do more than give them the -Gospel, could he?” - -On All Souls’ Day, 1912, Lascelles was depressed. Early that morning he -had gone up to the cemetery, and said a Requiem in the little chapel. -Then there had been the early Mass at 8.30 in church. The church had -been full. Not only were all his children there, but there were a good -many fathers and mothers: for the services on the day of the dead -appealed to a deep human instinct with a power which not even Lascelles -could spoil. The Dies Iræ, sung in Latin, had sounded oddly from a -congregation so predominantly childish: and Lascelles had preached a -short sermon on the “Significance of Death.” - -“We exaggerate the importance of death. It is to us death matters, not -to the dead. For them it is a release, for us it is a warning. Death of -the body is only a symbol. It is death of the soul we must fear. Believe -me, it would be worth while for every one of you in this church to die, -if by dying, you could bring a soul to Jesus. God knows, I would die for -you, if that would bring you. There are those here to-day—you, -Penberthy, and you, Trevose—who have not been to Mass since you were -boys. Make a new resolution to-day, and ask the Holy Souls to help you -keep it. Come to your duties, and return to your church.” - -Lascelles felt at the time that his appeal lacked force. He knew that -after Mass, Penberthy would say to Trevose: - -“Bootivul service, bean’t it, Tom?” - -“Iss—it be that. I du like it for once or twice. But for usual give me -the chapel. It be more nat’ral like.” - -“Iss—it be. Poor Mr. Lascelles, I did think he would have a slap at us.” - -“Iss—it be his way. My gosh! I don’t mind.” - -So Lascelles was depressed. He sat among his books, reading a Renascence -treatise on “Death.” He thought a great deal about death. Sometimes he -feared it horribly. It seemed the great enemy of faith. It was so -disconcerting a thing, so heartless, so unregarding. At other times he -felt defiant. But never did he reach the spirit of S. Francis about -death. He was too remote from natural life and the events of animal -birth and death to understand death as an ordinary thing, something not -less usual than the sunset. - -“It may be”—he read, “that there be more deaths than one. For it is -evident that some are so hardened in sin that the death of the body -comes long after the man has been really dead. Such men are commonly gay -and cheerful: for with the death of their soul, has died all godly fear, -all apprehension of judgment, all hope of salvation. They become but as -brutes. Wherefore the church has always held that heretics, if they be -obstinate and beyond recall, may be handed over to the secular arm for -the death of the body. It should not trouble us that they display -ordinary human virtues: for these be common in the unregenerate, and are -but devices of the devil who would persuade men that religion matters -naught. They are his children, and may be lawfully treated as such by -any godly prince. The church herself kills not: though the Lord Pope, -being a Temporal King, has the power of the sword, and may exercise the -same.” - -Lascelles put the book down and stared at the fire. The words roused a -train of thought that almost frightened him. But he was not the man to -dismiss any idea because it was terrifying. He believed in giving the -devil his due, and always insisted that all temptations should be met -boldly, not evaded. He left his chair, and knelt at his prie-dieu, -looking at the wounds of the great Crucifix which hung above it. - -Half an hour later he rose with a look of resolution on his face. - - - - - 2 - - - - -The first case of the plague, as the villagers insisted on calling it, -happened just before Epiphany. It attacked Penberthy, who had never been -ill before; and in four days he was dead. His disease puzzled the doctor -from the market-town, but he put it down as a curious case of infantile -paralysis. His colleague from Truro, whom he consulted after the third -case had occurred, insisted that the symptoms did not disclose anything -more definite than shock following on status lymphaticus. The most -serious thing was, however, not their incapacity to name, but their -inability to cure the mysterious disease, which was spreading in S. Uny. -Except for a general weariness, a disinclination to move, and a curious -“wambling in the innards,” there were no definite symptoms at all to go -on. After the second case they had an inquest, but it yielded no results -at all, and Dr. Marlowe began to talk of getting an expert from London. - -It was not until February, however, that anyone came. Then by a -fortunate chance Sir Joshua Tomlinson came down to S. Ives for a -holiday. The “plague” at S. Uny had got into the London paper. There had -been ten deaths, and two women, the first to be attacked, were lying -seriously ill. Dr. Marlowe called on Sir Joshua, and the great physician -said he would come over and see the patients. Marlowe was glad that -chance had sent him a great general physician rather than a surgeon or a -specialist. Although he was willing to defy any specialist to find his -pet disease in the mysterious sickness that had killed the ten -fishermen, he was relieved that no specialist was to be given the -opportunity. - -“You see, Lascelles,” he said to the priest, “it’s not as if we were in -the fifteenth century. We may be in theology, but I’m hanged if we are -in medicine. These men are dying like savages: but the savage makes up -his mind he has got to die, and dies through sheer hysteria. These -fellows want to live. They lust for life.” - -“You are right, Marlowe. Their desire for life is a lust. It is scarcely -decent in a Christian to cling so to this existence. But there—it’s not -my business to judge. You know, Marlowe, I have sometimes thought this -last month that this mysterious disease is a judgment on S. Uny. It is -God’s hand held out over our village. Let us pray for those who are -dead, and those who are dying, and most of all, dear God, for those who -are not yet to die.” - -Marlowe, though friendly with Lascelles, was more than a little afraid -of him. The vicar had worked like two men during this distress. He had -nursed the sick, he had consoled the mourners, he had said Masses and -had a service of general humiliation. Somehow he had identified himself -with his parish to a degree he had never reached before, and S. Uny was -grateful to him. But the little doctor was rather afraid. Lascelles was -strained and odd in manner. He spent too long a time in prayer, and not -long enough at meals or in bed. - -“No, Lascelles. I don’t agree with you there. Oh! I’m a good Catholic, I -hope, and I know God could intervene; but I don’t see why He should.” - -“No: you don’t see why. No one does, Marlowe, until He speaks, and then -they are forced to.” - -On the Saturday Sir Joshua came over, he saw Mrs. Pentreath and Mrs. -Wichelo, and he shook his head over both of them. He asked them -questions about their diet, and about their way of living, while Marlowe -stood by, silent and impatient. Then, he said a few kindly, cheerful -words, and left them in the big room, which the vicar had had fitted up -as a hospital ward; for Marlowe thought the cases were better isolated. - -“Well, sir, what do you think?” - -“What sort of a man is your vicar? He seems liked.” - -“Yes—he is. He’s an odd chap—a bit mad, I think. A very keen Catholic, -and very depressed at his failure to keep the people.” - -“Ah! they don’t go to church.” - -“Well they _do_ now. They have done since this damned illness. He’s been -awfully good to them. And the children have always gone.” - -“It’s a funny thing, Dr. Marlowe, that no child has been ill.” - -“Isn’t it? That’s what I say to young Jones of Truro. He will insist on -his shock theory, following on status lymphaticus. I keep on pointing -out to him that most of the patients are men who have had shocks every -week of their lives since they were twelve. They’d have all been dead -long since.” - -“Yes. I am sure Jones is wrong. But I don’t know what this disease is, -Dr. Marlowe. I suspect, but I don’t know.” - -“Here is the vicar coming, Sir Joshua. Shall I introduce you?” - -“Please do.” - -Lascelles was walking rapidly towards them. He looked ill but eager. His -eyes were full of a fanatic pleasure, a kind of holy rapture that -appeared to make him even taller than he actually was. He acknowledged -the introduction with a bow, and would have passed on, but Sir Joshua -stopped him with a question. - -“You have come from your sick people, Mr. Lascelles?” - -“Yes. They are no longer sick. I was just in time to hear their -confessions and give them the viaticum.” - -“Good God!” Sir Joshua was evidently shocked. “It’s not ten minutes -since we left them.” - -“No? The end has always been very sudden, hasn’t it, Marlowe?” - -“Yes. But this is quicker than usual. Do you think, Sir Joshua”—and he -lowered his voice—“a post-mortem?” - -“No. It would be useless. At least it would be no help to me. By the -way, Marlowe, how have you entered the cause of death?” - -“Well, sir—I’ve frankly put ‘Heart failure, cause unknown.’ There seemed -to be nothing between that and ‘Act of God.’” - -“Ah! Marlowe, that’s what you should have put,” intervened Lascelles. -“It is the hand of God—the hand of God.” Then, with a bow to Sir Joshua, -he hurried away. - -“So your vicar thinks it is the hand of God! He may be right. God works -through human agents. He is an interesting man, Dr. Marlowe.” - -“Yes: he is. But this trouble has worried him frightfully. I’m rather -nervous for him. Have you got any theory, sir? You talked of suspicion.” - -“Well, Dr. Marlowe, I’ll tell you what I think. Your patients have been -murdered.” - -Marlowe looked at the great physician, as if he was afraid for his -sanity. - -“No, Dr. Marlowe, I’m not mad, though I have no proof of my assertion. -All I ask is this, that I may be allowed to see the next patient within -at least half an hour of the beginning of the illness. By the way, can -they give me a bed here, do you think? Where do you put up?” - -“Oh! I’m staying at the vicar’s. I expect he’d be charmed to have you.” - -“No. I don’t think I will stay with Father Lascelles. I would rather -not. I’ll find a room somewhere. I think there will be another case -to-morrow night.” - - - - - 3 - - - - -That Sunday morning Lascelles preached on the “Hand of Judgment.” The -church was packed. Trengrowse had his service at nine and brought all -his congregation to the Mass at eleven. Lascelles seemed wonderfully -better. His eye was clearer, his step gayer and his whole figure more -buoyant. His tone as he gave out his text was exultant. - -“They pierced his hands. - -“The symbolism of the Divine Body is strangely arresting. The Jews -thought of God as an eye watching, caring for them from heaven. We -Christians watch God—here in the Tabernacle, or in the arms of Mary. His -care for us we typify by his Hand—the Hand we pierced. This last month -God has been with us very wonderfully. He is always with us in the Holy -Sacrament: but lately he has been with us in the Sacrament of Death. His -Hand of Judgment has been over, and under us; it has clasped us—and some -of us it has not let go. - -“Our natural feeling is one of fear. We are not used to such immediate -handling as this of our God’s. We have most of us tried to apply -religion to our life, now we have to try and apply our life to religion. -God will have us think of nothing but Him, speak to none save Him, hope -for none save Him. His Hand is still with us. It will bear yet more away -from S. Uny before we learn our lesson. Let me help you to learn that -lesson right. Let us all take care that we renew our trust in God, that -we recognise His Hand, that we answer His Love.” - -Sir Joshua had listened attentively to Lascelles’ sermon. He seemed -vaguely disappointed, and he was unwilling to discuss it with Marlowe -afterwards. There was no doubt that Lascelles’ almost fatalist attitude, -while it annoyed the doctor, had a strange welcome from the villagers. -They turned in a child-like way to the words of this man who spoke as -one who knew the ways and the meaning of the Almighty. Never had -Lascelles so much real devotion from his people as he secured during the -“plague.” It was not that they shared his feeling of complete -abandonment to the Will of God; but the fact that he had such a feeling -made their fate seem more tolerable. - -On Sunday evening there was a new case, as Sir Joshua had expected. The -disease attacked Mrs. Bodilly, the wife of the chief grocer in S. Uny. -Marlowe was summoned immediately, but he found Sir Joshua already at the -poor woman’s bedside. - -She was frankly terrified; in this her case differed from previous ones, -in which the sufferers, though generally resentful, had been not the -least afraid. Mrs. Bodilly had been at Mass that morning. She had got -back and prepared the dinner. At tea-time she had “felt queer,” but -after tea she was better. Then, as she was getting ready to go to the -special service of Exposition, she fell down and had to be carried up to -her room by her husband and sons. - -She was, unlike most of the tradesmen’s wives, a nominal church woman, -but she had never been confirmed and rarely went to church. The fit of -external piety roused in her by the “plague” was frankly based on -nervous alarm. She felt that God was taking it out of S. Uny in this -way; and she was anxious to escape. - -Her illness found her divided between anger and fear. She was angry that -her efforts to placate Divine wrath had not been more successful—she was -terrified of dying, terrified still more of death as a punishment. In -the most desolate way she sought reassurances from Marlowe and Sir -Joshua; but neither could give her any certain consolation. The disease -presented no different aspects. It indeed presented no aspect at all, -except extreme weakness, astonishing slowness of the pulse, and -irregular beating of the heart. Although Sir Joshua was there within -five minutes of the seizure, he admitted to Marlowe that he could -discover nothing of what he suspected. - -“I’ll be frank, Dr. Marlowe, I suspected poison. I still suspect it. I -believe all these people have been poisoned in an extremely subtle way -by a man so fanatical as to be almost mad. But I can find no trace of -the poison. In this case, I will, if you will permit me, conduct a -post-mortem, but I expect I shall fail. If I do, I must take my own -line, if you wish me to help you.” - -“Really, Sir Joshua, you talk more like a detective than a physician.” - -“This is a detective’s business, Dr. Marlowe. I wish it were not.” - -Before they left Lascelles arrived. He had been summoned by Mr. Bodilly, -and he came prepared to give Mrs. Bodilly the last rites. As the boy -with the light and the bell approached the stairs, Sir Joshua whispered -to Marlowe: - -“Your vicar seems very certain of her death.” - -Marlowe shrugged his shoulders. “We haven’t saved a case, you know.” - -The post-mortem yielded no result. That evening Marlowe dined with Sir -Joshua at the village inn, and after dinner the great physician told him -of his suspicions. Marlowe listened at first angrily, then with an -incredulous horror. - -“It can’t be. The man lives for his parish, I tell you. Why, he would -die for it.” - -“Yes: I believe he would. Had I found what I looked for, he certainly -would.” - -“But, my dear sir, there isn’t a trace of any known drug. There’s no -trace of anything.” - -“No. I had expected to find—but never mind. I have a great deal of -experience, Dr. Marlowe, and I am convinced that your vicar has been -murdering his parishioners. And to-night I am coming to tell him so. I -will walk home with you. You may be present or not, as you please.” - - - - - 4 - - - - -Lascelles looked up a little wearily when Sir Joshua had finished -speaking. - -“Is that all?” - -Marlowe intervened. - -“Look here, old man—I only came because—you’ll forgive me, Sir Joshua—I -didn’t want you to be alone under this monstrous, this fantastic -accusation of Sir Joshua’s. You’ve only got to contradict him, and we’ll -go.” - -Lascelles looked gratefully at his friend. - -“Thank you, Marlowe. But Sir Joshua is right in telling me his -suspicions. You have finished, Sir Joshua?” - -“Yes. I should like your explanation if you have one, or your admission -of my charge, and your promise that this—this—plague shall cease.” - -“You use strange words, sir, for a man who has no evidence for what he -says.” - -“Yes,” ejaculated Marlowe, “yes, by Jove, you do——” - -“Please, Marlowe. You will not be content with having relieved your -mind, Sir Joshua. You wish me to answer you?” - -“I do. I require it.” - -“You know, sir, you great doctors have one failing. It is one priests -have, too. You cannot avoid talking to me as if I were your patient—a -mental, a nervous case. You can’t help believing that your firm tone, -your almost—may I say it—discourteous manner will impress me. Well, it -doesn’t.” - -Sir Joshua got red. Lascelles’ words too entirely diagnosed his method. -He was annoyed that he should seem so transparent to a man whom he -regarded as at least half-crazy. - -“I beg your pardon. There is something in what you say. Men in all -professions have their—ah! tricks.” - -“Thank you.” - -Lascelles got up and stood by the fireplace looking down on his visitor. -In the last month he had changed. He seemed bigger and more -masculine—more as if he now had personal responsibilities; he looked -less of an official, more of a man. He spoke rather slowly. - -“You have accused me of murder, Sir Joshua. You ask me to admit my -crime, and to promise to cease. Well, I expected your visit. I have long -been familiar with your Treatise on Renascence Toxicology; it is as -complete as any published book. And I am glad you and Marlowe came -to-night. I have my answer ready. I admit nothing, and I promise -nothing.” - -Sir Joshua looked with a puzzled air at the priest. For a moment his -accusation seemed a monstrous thing to himself. Then his common sense -surged back. - -“Father Lascelles, your answer does not satisfy me. I must take other -steps.” - -“They will not lead anywhere, Sir Joshua. If you find no evidence, no -other man can. You say my poor people were poisoned. Well, find the -poison. Ah—you know you cannot. It is foolish to threaten me. But I will -tell you what I had determined to tell Marlowe to-night. First, I do not -expect there will be any more deaths from this plague for a long time. - -“Secondly, I have a confession to make. Last All Hallows I was -depressed. The work here has not gone as it should. I had the children, -but not their parents. I thought much of Death and the Departed at that -season of all the dead—and at last I prayed to God that if nothing else -would move these people, He would send Death. Send Death mysterious and -as a judgment. Death has come, and my people have learnt their lesson. -All of those who died were reconciled to Holy Church before death. Of -those who remain nearly all have adhered to the Church. This afternoon -Mr. Trengrowse came and asked to be prepared for Confirmation——” - -“Trengrowse, the minister——” cried Marlowe. - -“And this evening I had notice that all who are competent intend to make -their Communion next Sunday. This parish has been won for God, Sir -Joshua, and at the cost of thirteen deaths. Isn’t it worth it?” - -“Father Lascelles, I cannot regard you as sane. You are not only -practically admitting your crime, you are disclosing your motives.” - -“I beg your pardon, I admit nothing. I acknowledge I prayed to God to -visit this people, if necessary, by His secret Death. That is not a -crime. Next Sunday I shall tell my people.” - -“And have you _prayed_ that the deaths shall cease?” asked Sir Joshua -ironically. - -“I was doing so when you entered,” replied Lascelles quietly. - -“Good God, man, your hypocrisy sickens me. You prate of God’s -intervention, and all the time you’ve been sending man after man to -death by some foul poison of your own.” - -“Sir Joshua—do you believe God commonly works without human -intervention?” - -“Bah! That is sophistry.” - -“You condemn the machinery of justice, the compromise of war, our human -evasion of rope and guillotine?” - -“Surely, Marlowe,” exclaimed Sir Joshua, “you can’t sit and listen -quietly to this damnable nonsense?” - -Marlowe had been sitting dazed, looking at Lascelles as if he were -fascinated. He replied in a remote voice. - -“I don’t know. I’m wondering”—he gave a nervous laugh—“wondering if -Lascelles is a saint or a devil.” - -Lascelles went on imperturbably. - -“You don’t answer me. You can’t. Why should you think I, an anointed -priest, am less fit to be the doorkeeper of death than Lord Justice -Ommaney? At least I use no case-law. I am the slave of no precedent. I -know my people. I know them individually. I love them as persons. And as -persons I judge them.” - -The tall figure of the man seemed to glow. His face was lit with an -unnatural beauty as he stood looking down on the other two, and dared -them to answer him. - -Sir Joshua rose. He had lost his somewhat pompous judicial air. He was -deeply, humanly moved; and he spoke with an anxiety far more impressive -than his previous authoritative tone. - -“Father Lascelles, I have nothing more to say. I believe you have done a -very horrible, a very wicked thing. I have heard how you would defend -yourself if you were legally brought to book for such an offence. Your -defence has, as you are aware, no legal force. I think it has no moral -force. You are deceiving yourself strangely. One day you will have a -great loneliness of heart. You will realise how terrible a -responsibility you have taken. Without the sanction of society, without -the approval of your church, you have decided, alone, the fate of your -fellow-creatures. I am sorry for you. Good-night.” - -The light left Lascelles’ face. He looked suddenly ill and careworn. -Then with a high, frantic gesture he flung his hand towards the -Crucifix. - -“He, too—He, too—was made sin.” - - - - -DAVY JONES’S GIFT - -By JOHN MASEFIELD - - From A Tarpaulin Muster, by John Masefield, - by permission of Dodd, Mead and Company. - - -“Once upon a time,” said the sailor, “the Devil and Davy Jones came to -Cardiff, to the place called Tiger Bay. They put up at Tony Adam’s, not -far from Pier Head, at the corner of Sunday Lane. And all the time they -stayed there, they used to be going to the rum-shop, where they sat at a -table, smoking their cigars, and dicing each other for different -persons’ souls. Now you must know that the Devil gets landsmen, and Davy -Jones gets sailor-folk; and they get tired of having always the same, so -then they dice each other for some of another sort. - -“One time they were in a place in Mary Street, having some burnt brandy, -and playing red and black for the people passing. And while they were -looking out on the street and turning the cards, they saw all the people -on the sidewalk breaking their necks to get into the gutter. And they -saw all the shop-people running out and kowtowing, and all the carts -pulling up, and all the police saluting. ‘Here comes a big nob,’ said -Davy Jones. ‘Yes,’ said the Devil; ‘it’s the Bishop that’s stopping with -the Mayor.’ ‘Red or black?’ said Davy Jones, picking up a card. ‘I don’t -play for bishops,’ said the Devil. ‘I respect the cloth,’ he said. ‘Come -on, man,’ said Davy Jones. ‘I’d give an admiral to have a bishop. Come -on, now; make your game. Red or black?’ ‘Well, I say red,’ said the -Devil. ‘It’s the ace of clubs,’ said Davy Jones; ‘I win; and it’s the -first bishop ever I had in my life.’ The Devil was mighty angry at -that—at losing a bishop. ‘I’ll not play any more,’ he said; ‘I’m off -home. Some people gets too good cards for me. There was some queer -shuffling when that pack was cut, that’s my belief.’ - -“‘Ah, stay and be friends, man,’ said Davy Jones. ‘Look at what’s coming -down the street. I’ll give you that for nothing.’ - -“Now, coming down the street there was a reefer—one of those apprentice -fellows. And he was brass-bound fit to play music. He stood about six -feet, and there were bright brass buttons down his jacket, and on his -collar, and on his sleeves. His cap had a big gold badge, with a -house-flag in seven different colours in the middle of it, and a gold -chain cable of a chinstay twisted round it. He was wearing his cap on -three hairs, and he was walking on both the sidewalks and all the road. -His trousers were cut like wind-sails round his ankles. He had a fathom -of red silk tie rolling out over his chest. He’d a cigarette in a -twisted clay holder a foot and a half long. He was chewing tobacco over -his shoulders as he walked. He’d a bottle of rum-hot in one hand, a bag -of jam tarts in the other, and his pockets were full of love-letters -from every port between Rio and Callao, round by the East. - -“‘You mean to say you’ll give me that?’ said the Devil. ‘I will,’ said -Davy Jones, ‘and a beauty he is. I never see a finer.’ ‘He is, indeed, a -beauty,’ said the Devil. ‘I take back what I said about the cards. I’m -sorry I spoke crusty. What’s the matter with some burnt brandy?’ ‘Burnt -brandy be it,’ said Davy Jones. So then they rang the bell, and ordered -a new jug and clean glasses. - -“Now the Devil was so proud of what Davy Jones had given him, he -couldn’t keep away from him. He used to hang about the East Bute Docks, -under the red-brick clock-tower, looking at the barque the young man -worked aboard. Bill Harker his name was. He was in the West Coast -barque, the _Coronel_, loading fuel for Hilo. So at last, when the -_Coronel_ was sailing, the Devil shipped himself aboard her, as one of -the crowd in the fo’c’sle, and away they went down the Channel. At first -he was very happy, for Bill Harker was in the same watch, and the two -would yarn together. And though he was wise when he shipped, Bill Harker -taught him a lot. There was a lot of things Bill Harker knew about. But -when they were off the River Plate, they got caught in a pampero, and it -blew very hard, and a big green sea began to run. The _Coronel_ was a -wet ship, and for three days you could stand upon her poop, and look -forward and see nothing but a smother of foam from the break of the poop -to the jib-boom. The crew had to roost on the poop. The fo’c’sle was -flooded out. So while they were like this the flying jib worked loose. -‘The jib will be gone in a half a tick,’ said the mate. ‘Out there, one -of you, and make it fast, before it blows away.’ But the boom was -dipping under every minute, and the waist was four feet deep, and green -water came aboard all along her length. So none of the crowd would go -forward. Then Bill Harker shambled out, and away he went forward, with -the green seas smashing over him, and he lay out along the jib-boom and -made the sail fast, and jolly nearly drowned he was. ‘That’s a brave -lad, that Bill Harker,’ said the Devil. ‘Ah, come off,’ said the -sailors. ‘Them reefers, they haven’t got souls to be saved.’ It was that -that set the Devil thinking. - -“By and by they came up with the Horn; and if it had blown off the -Plate, it now blew off the roof. Talk about wind and weather. They got -them both for shore aboard the _Coronel_. And it blew all the sails off -her, and she rolled all her masts out, and the seas made a breach of her -bulwarks, and the ice knocked a hole in her bows. So watch and watch -they pumped the old _Coronel_, and the leak gained steadily, and they -were hove to under a weather cloth, five and a half degrees to the south -of anything. And while they were like this, just about giving up hope, -the old man sent the watch below, and told them they could start -prayers. So the Devil crept on to the top of the half-deck, to look -through the scuttle, to see what the reefers were doing, and what kind -of prayers Bill Harker was putting up. And he saw them all sitting round -the table, under the lamp, with Bill Harker at the head. And each of -them had a hand of cards, and a length of knotted rope-yarn, and they -were playing able-whackets. Each man in turn put down a card, and swore -a new blasphemy, and if his swear didn’t come as he played the card, -then all the others hit him with their teasers. But they never once had -a chance to hit Bill Harker. ‘I think they were right about his soul,’ -said the Devil. And he sighed, like he was sad. - -“Shortly after the _Coronel_ went down, and all hands drowned in her, -saving only Bill Harker and the Devil. They came up out of the -smothering green seas, and saw the stars blinking in the sky, and heard -the wind howling like a pack of dogs. They managed to get aboard the -_Coronel’s_ hen-house, which had come adrift, and floated. The fowls -were all drowned inside, so they lived on drowned hens. As for drink, -they had to do without for there was none. When they got thirsty they -splashed their faces with salt water; but they were so cold they didn’t -feel thirst very bad. They drifted three days and three nights, till -their skins were all cracked and salt-caked. And all the Devil thought -of was whether Bill Harker had a soul. And Bill kept telling the Devil -what a thundering big feed they would have as soon as they fetched to -port, and how good a rum-hot would be, with a lump of sugar and a bit of -lemon peel. - -“And at last the old hen-house came bump on to Terra del Fuego, and -there were some natives cooking rabbits. So the Devil and Bill made a -raid of the whole jing bang, and ate till they were tired. Then they had -a drink out of a brook, and a warm by the fire, and a pleasant sleep. -‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘I will see if he’s got a soul. I’ll see if he -give thanks.’ So after an hour or two Bill took a turn up and down and -came to the Devil. ‘It’s mighty dull on this forgotten continent,’ he -said. ‘Have you got a ha’penny?’ ‘No,’ said the Devil. ‘What in joy d’ye -want with a ha’penny?’ ‘I might have played you pitch and toss,’ said -Bill. ‘I give you up,’ said the Devil; ‘you’ve no more soul than the -inner part of an empty barrel.’ And with that the Devil vanished in a -flame of sulphur. - -“Bill stretched himself, and put another shrub on the fire. He picked up -a few round shells, and began a game of knucklebones.” - - - - -THE CALL OF THE HAND - -(A Story of the Balkans) - -By LOUIS GOLDING - - - - - 1 - - - - -No one knew what sin Nikolai Kupreloff had committed to bring on his -head so terrible a penalty. Year after year his wife and he had prayed -for a child, to their ikons in the tiny basilica in the wood, and when -his wife gave birth at last, it was neither a child nor children. She -had given birth to two little boys, perfectly made, exquisitely -proportioned, but there was a deadly thing had befallen them ... the -tiny right hand of the one was inexorably seized by the left hand of the -other. - -The little woodcutter’s cottage of Nikolai lay deeply hidden in the -great pine woods of Lower Serbia, miles from his nearest neighbour. Yet -even in that wild country the fame of the intertwined children travelled -far, and the wise old women from those parts came to see if herbs or -chanting or any of their dark gifts might be of the least avail. They -were no more useful than a real doctor who had studied at Belgrade, was -practising at Monastir, and was stimulated to great interest by the -account of these strange children. The case defied all the arts of black -or white magic, and the interest of the episode flickered and died down. - -So it was that Nikolai reconciled himself to the inevitable, and as the -boys grew older he would cross himself devoutly and say: “Thank God, it -might have been a thousand times worse!” They were lads of extraordinary -beauty. Peter and Ivan he called them, Ivan being the lad who held so -irrevocably the wrist of his brother within his fingers. In appearance -they were identical—the light, tough hair and the laughing blue eyes of -the Serbian Slav, sturdy, well-knit limbs, and a sterling robustness of -physique. It was only their parents and themselves who knew that between -them there was one slight but unmistakable mark of distinction—below the -knuckle of Ivan’s thumb was marked dully a little red arrow. In fact, a -stranger might not have known that this abnormal bond existed between -the two brothers as he saw them swinging along under the pines. “What a -loving little pair!” he would exclaim, as he heard them laugh and -chatter in complete harmony, and look into each other’s eyes with the -understanding born of flawless love. - -When they were about fifteen years old their mother died, and the father -Nikolai began more and more to remain behind in his cottage attending to -the frugal needs of the little family, while Peter and Ivan, as the -years went on, grew even more skilful in the art of woodcutting; for -Peter wielding the axe in his left hand, Ivan in his right, achieved -such a fine reciprocity of movement, that Nikolai would laugh in his -great yellow beard and mutter: “Truly the ways of God are inscrutable, -for even out of their calamity has He made a great blessing!” The -passing of time only knit closer their perfect intimacy, so that they -almost did not notice when their father Nikolai sickened and died. Now -they were left to their cottage and their woodcutting and their complete -love, the whole being crowned by the splendid physique of young -foresters at twenty-one; so that life, it seemed, had nothing in store -for them but long years of undivided love and content. - -Yet even into their seclusion rumours came of the great world beyond. -Now and again they would catch glimpses of the marvels of Salonika in -the eyes of travelled men. They would hear of a city where lovely women, -infinitely more beautiful than the queen of the tousled gypsies who -flickered from time to time along the forest paths, sang upon stages of -golden wood, in gardens full of hanging lights. They would hear of the -sea and glowing ships, and men who spoke low musical languages uttered -in countries beyond the sea. - -So it was the brothers determined to leave their woodcutting behind them -for a season and adventure forth into the world of ships and songs and -lovely women. - - - - - 2 - - - - -To Peter and Ivan Salonika was a revelation of wonders they barely -thought actual. From a little room in the street of Johann Tschimiski -they saw the multicoloured tides of cosmopolitan humanity sweeping down -from Egnatia Street, down Venizelos Street to the Place de la Concorde. -They would walk along the quay-side past the great hotels to the Jardins -de la Tour Blanche, and were sent into an ecstasy of delight by the -_chic_ little women who smiled archly at these two fair-headed lads from -the up-country, who walked along hand clasped in wrist in so naïve and -rustic a manner. Yet when they entered the Théatre des Variétés at the -White Tower it seemed to them that the very portals of heaven had opened -wide. They would return in a daze of delight to their room and recount -with an almost religious fervour the beauties and enchantments of the -show. Each little Spanish or French girl who came to do her song or -minuet had seemed to them more enchanting than the last. Never a cloud -of disagreement came between them. There was a perfect coincidence in -their tastes, and never, they felt, had their love for each other been -so sympathetic and complete as it was now. - -The brothers had no large sum of money at their disposal. The time of -their holiday was drawing to a close. One evening they turned up at the -theatre for the last time, their nerves keyed up to a pitch of delighted -impatience, the more tense as the brothers knew that the next day would -see them on the arduous road back to their Serbian forest. Turn followed -turn with alluring consequence. Then at one stage the music ceased for -some moments and there was an atmosphere of expectance in the air. It -was then that a simple and delightful English girl came half-shyly from -the wings. There was nothing flamboyant in her appearance or her manner. -Yet at once she seemed to seize the house with the graceful and reticent -winsomeness of her song. So she sang her song through, a dainty little -ballad of old-world gardens and fragrant flowers and love unto death. -Peter felt the fingers of Ivan tighten round his wrist. He himself had -been so stirred to his depths by the gentle grace of the girl that it -was with a slight feeling of resentment he realised that Ivan had been -experiencing once again an identical emotion. As he involuntarily moved -away his arm Ivan uttered a slight cry of impatience. He turned round -and looked into Peter’s eyes and found them aflame with a light deeper -than mere appreciation. Peter was aware of his brother’s glance and -looked at Ivan in return to find his face flushed almost as if he were -half-drunk. - -That night for the first time in their history there occurred a slight -bickering between the two. No mention of the little English actress -passed between them, but each of them determined that some day, when his -brother’s interest had died away, he should broach the subject and the -possibility of a rediscovery of the English actress at Salonika. - -Next day they entrained for Monastir, and a few days later saw them -installed once again in their father’s cottage in the wood. - - - - - 3 - - - - -In proportion as the fortunes of the Kupreloff brothers increased, -something that had once existed between them receded further away. The -perfection of their old intimacy became a memory of the past. No longer -did the most minute physical or spiritual experience of the one become -automatically part of his brother’s consciousness. So that now for the -first time their indissoluble partnership became more and more galling. - -There was no doubt of it. Everything dated from that last night at -Salonika, when the English girl appeared on the stage. They would still -occasionally revive something of the old fervour as they discussed from -time to time their impressions of the unforgettable holiday. Yet never a -word passed between them concerning the unconscious girl who had -captured both their hearts. At night they would lie awake, each thinking -that the other was asleep. Bitterly, definitely, they would confess to -their own deep hearts: “She is mine, she is mine; I am hers for ever.” -And yet to each their love seemed hopeless beyond recall. There was the -double sting that each of them loved the girl with an intensity reserved -hitherto for his brother; but, if possible, more fatal was the -despairing conviction that no girl could ever love the one of two -brothers to whom the other would remain physically attached till death -carried them both away. As the months passed by the friction between -them increased. They were now in a position to buy land and a little -livestock. But if Peter insisted upon keeping pigs, in the fashion of -the majority of Serbians, Ivan would insist upon cattle. If Peter felt -that he had done enough woodcutting for the day, Ivan felt that the day -was only just beginning. - -One night in late autumn Peter lay tossing very heavily in his sleep. -Ivan lay awake, thinking, thinking for ever of the girl, his whole heart -full of rancour against the brother who must for ever prevent the -consummation of his love. Heavily, wearily, Peter heaved on the bed. -Outside the wind was howling. The dreariness of the wind seemed to enter -Peter’s heart. “My little girl,” he murmured, “my little girl! When -shall we meet, my little girl? Never, never, never!” Ivan’s forehead -contracted with hate. He was filled suddenly with a tremendous loathing -of his brother. “Never, never, never!” moaned Peter. Suddenly, obeying a -frantic impulse, Ivan pulled with all his strength away from his -brother’s wrist to which Fate had so viciously fastened him. With a -great scream of pain Peter half leapt from the bed. - -“What’s this? What do you mean?” he shouted, his voice thick with pain -and sleep. “Nothing! Nothing! I couldn’t help it! I was dreaming!” -replied Ivan savagely, and the brothers settled down again for the -night. - -Night after night the same thing happened. Peter would murmur for ever -in his sleep, “My little girl, when shall we meet? Never, never, never!” -Ivan would lie awake, hatred surging violently through his whole body, -till his eyes would see nothing but flames in the darkness of their -log-built room; and the sound of the branches in the forest would begin -to mutter and moan: “Have done with it, Ivan, have done with it! She is -waiting for you, waiting, always waiting. Have done with it! Have done -with him—with him—with _him_!” - -One desolate night towards mid-winter the room was full of the miserable -sleep-cries of Peter. Outside thunder ripped among the clouds. A finger -of lightning came suddenly through the windows and pointed with a -gesture of flame towards the open breast of Peter. A sudden and terrible -thought flooded into Ivan’s soul! Whatever there was of human kindness -and brother-love seemed in one sinister moment to be washed away from -before the onset of the flood. All the branches upon all the trees -shrieked across the night. “We shall be quiet, you shall have rest. She -shall be yours. Have done with him, have done with him!” - -A great calm settled down upon Ivan’s soul—the issue was decided, the -issue which had been hovering for so long in his subconsciousness was -decided at last. There was nothing left to do. The mere deed was the -mere snapping of a thread. With his eyes wide open, a terrible silence -laying upon his soul, he stared into the night, waiting, waiting for the -dawn. - -Dawn came at last. The brothers washed and took food. There was a long -way to go, far off into the woods. There was almost a tenderness in -Ivan’s attitude towards Peter. What mattered now? The issue was decided; -the gods had taken the thing out of his hands. With their axes swinging -they made their way into the woods, through a day sharp with frost. At -last they arrived at the clearing where they were to continue their -tree-felling. A brazier stood waiting there, and before work started -they lit a fire in preparation for the midday meal. Then they picked up -their axes and set to. Lustily their strokes rang through the wood. -Chime rang upon chime. It was strenuous work, the work of men with -strong muscles and keen eyes. - -The morning went by steadily. There was no hate in Ivan’s soul—only a -deadly patience. He knew the moment would come. He knew when the moment -came that he would act. For a few minutes they stopped and wiped their -foreheads. Peter opened his shirt wide and exposed his breast to Ivan. -The quick vision presented itself of Peter heaving darkly in their bed, -the sudden finger of lightning, the naked breast. - -“Come!” said Ivan thickly, “let us begin!” - -They both took up their positions against a tree. Peter with the axe in -his left hand struck against the tree. Ivan, quick as the lightning -which last night had shown him his way, whirled his axe round, away from -the tree, and the sharp edge went cracking through Peter’s ribs, deep -beyond the heart. A great fountain of blood spurted into the air. A -long, feeble moan left Peter’s lips. Deeper than the axe had cut, his -eyes looked sorrowfully into the soul of Ivan. His weight tottered and -Ivan felt himself following to the ground. There was not a moment to -lose. Again the axe whirled through the air. With the whole of a strong -man’s strength the axe came down upon his own wrist, and down fell the -body of Peter with the hand of his brother indissoluble in death round -his wrist, as it had been indissoluble in life. - -The thing he had brought about was too monstrous for Ivan at that moment -to understand. It was only the little things that his ear and eye -seized—the frightened screech of a bird in a tree, the sullen shining of -the little red arrow in the thumb of his own severed hand. - -Ivan felt the blood streaming from the stump of his forearm. He knew -that if he did not reassert complete mastery over himself he would bleed -to death. All would be vain—the call of the far girl, the murder, the -last look in Peter’s eyes. He staggered over to the brazier and plunged -his forearm for one swift instant into the embers. Then darkness -overwhelmed him and he fell backward into unutterable night. - - - - - 4 - - - - -It was easy enough to explain. Not the least suspicion attached itself -to Ivan. People came from remote cabins and farms to sympathise with the -bereaved brother. What was more likely in the world than that Ivan’s axe -should slide from a knot in the tree and come crashing against Peter, -who, even if he could see the axe coming, could not by any human means -have disengaged himself from his brother. “I always thought something -like this would happen,” people muttered wisely to each other, and shook -their heads and crossed their breasts. - -Of course they all understood how Ivan could no longer remain in the -cottage consecrated by memories of his brother. So Ivan sold his -accumulation of timber and his land and what little stock the brothers -had bought, and it was not many weeks after his forearm was healed that -the jangling train from Monastir was bearing him through the Macedonian -hills upon his quest for the English girl at Salonika. - -In Salonika she was nowhere to be found. Forlornly he went from -music-hall to music-hall, but she was gone. He haunted even the _cafés -chantants_ along Egnatia Street, even the degenerate _brasseries_ on the -Monastir Road, where the red-costumed women stood upon improvised -platforms and sang to tipsy crowds with the accompaniment of feeble -violins. But there was no trace of her in the whole city. From the -director at the White Tower he learned that perhaps she had proceeded to -Constantinople, perhaps she had returned to Athens, whence the European -artistes generally came to Salonika on their round of the greater -Levantine towns. - -With all the fervour and idealism of a mediæval knight Ivan stepped upon -the deck of a Messageries Maritimes boat returning to Marseilles by way -of the Piræus. When the electric train from the harbour landed him at -the station in Athens a mystic conviction filled him that here in this -city, some day, the English girl would be revealed to him. Ambitiously -he first tried the great _Opéra_, but she was not there. The weeks -lengthened into months and failure followed failure, but the mysterious -foreknowledge of his race held up his weary spirits and bade him put -aside despair. - -When at last she appeared upon the stage of one of the lesser -music-halls, it was with no great start of surprise or welcome that he -recognised her arrival. It was as if a mother or a sister had slipped -back into the place from which for some reason she had been absent. Her -features had become engraved upon every curve of his brain. She came -upon the stage and filled his life again as naturally as day fills the -place of night. Life became for him a thing of meaning and splendour. He -realised that at last Life was to begin. - -He knew little of the half-measures and half-advances of Western -civilisation. He lost no time in appearing before the girl. After only a -few words of difficult apology, with a voice of low and subdued passion -he told her a fragment or two of his tale. It was a broken French that -he talked—the French of which his mother long ago had taught her boys -the few phrases she knew, and which his experiences in Salonika and -Athens during the last few months had greatly improved. - -The large grey eyes of the English girl opened wide in wonder as she -listened, fascinated, to the stammering avowals of this tall stranger -from a shadowy land. Half in fright she drew back against the wall of -her wretched little dressing-room, but, even so soon she realised that -the destiny was overwhelming her which was to bring an end to her -wanderings. She consented shyly to his suggestion that she should see -him for a little while next night, and it was with a thrill of delight -and fear she saw his great figure waiting for her at the gate of the -Museum, as the purple Athenian dusk came wandering down from the -Acropolis and cast velvet glooms among the pillars of Pentelican marble. - -For years since her mother had died and her father had become a -confirmed drunkard, it was a very lonely life that Mary Weston had led. -She had no great talent, and she had drifted from theatre to theatre -upon the Continent, for to her England was a place of no kindly -memories. Ivan Kupreloff began to mean for her what her mother had meant -before she died and her father before he had taken to drink. - -A few months had passed only. There was no escape from Ivan. There was -nothing importunate about him, but he was irresistible. He was Life. -Proudly he realised that he had conquered her. To world’s end and Time’s -end she was his own. - -They were married at length. Athens and all the cities she had known, -the Serbian wood and the murdered brother—these passed utterly from -their souls in the strong kiss which united them for all days. - - - - - 5 - - - - -Yet not for ever was the memory of his dead life to vanish from the -heart of Ivan. Even during the times of his most passionate love for -Mary there began to invade him moments of bitter memory and regret. -There was something which prevented the entire fusion with Mary towards -which he yearned and ached. It was something deep in his soul. It was -something which gnawed at his forearm, bit with teeth of contrition at -the place where the axe had fallen and severed the hand from the wrist. - -He tried to put all this futility from him. He would seize Mary more -closely, look desperately into her eyes, and in the perfume of her lips -and hair seek anodyne. Between them there was a sufficient store of -money, small though it was, to allow them a few months of liberty, -undisturbed by any thought of the future. They wandered lazily about -Greece for a little time, finding in the Greek day and the immemorial -hills a perfect setting for their love. - -And yet ever more insistently came to him the call of the hand—the hand -which had been his own and not his own, the hand which had united in so -unique an embrace his brother with himself. - -Again at night voices tormented him. Again, when winds were about, they -called with living words: “The hand! The hand! It is calling you, -calling! Answer! He wants you! Peter!” wailed the wind. “Peter! Peter!” - -Lines began to draw across his forehead. With anxiety Mary saw shadows -growing under his eyes, and in his eyes a hunger which grew more and -more forlorn. “What is it, love?” she would murmur. “You’ve not slept -well!” - -“Nothing at all, love, nothing! All’s well!” he would reply, trying with -a kiss to forget the wind and the hand and the call. - -“There’s something you’re longing for. Tell me, Ivan. Let me help you. -You must.” - -“Nothing, Mary. I’ve got you. There’s nothing else in the world.” But -the call of the hand did not abate. “Peter!” the winds wailed, “Peter! -He wants you! Answer!” - -The urgency of the call grew more imperious. He was sickening and -growing weak. There was a hot torpidity in the dry Greek noon which -shrivelled his veins. He would drag his coat down from his neck and lift -his head and try to breathe the deep breath he had known in his Serbian -wood. But there was no spaciousness, no great draughts of cool air in -the wind, only voices: “Peter! Peter! Peter!” - -“We must go somewhere. We must go away,” said Mary. “We must go to -Athens and see a doctor, Ivan. I’m afraid!” - -“Not Athens! No!” he replied with a shudder, his temples contracting as -before the hot blast from an oven. Those dry marble spaces! The dusty -pepper-trees! The sweating crowds in the shops, swallowing sweet cakes -like swine swallowing husks in a sty! Athens became a nightmare. - -He was lying awake one night, the body of Mary curled beside him, her -hair floating vaguely on the pillow in the half-light of the moon. She -stirred in her sleep, and her little white hand unconsciously sought his -wrist and fastened tightly round it. That moment bridged the buried -time. Unescapably Mary had brought back to him the sensation of Peter -lying in the grasp of his own hand. Never before was the call of the -hand so imperious. Never so clearly did the wind exclaim, “Peter! He -wants you! Answer!” - -An irresistible love for his murdered brother overwhelmed him. He raised -himself from his bed and lifted helplessly his lopped arm into the -whispering room. “Coming, my brother, I am coming! Wait! Peter!” he -moaned, and the wind replied: “Peter! Peter!” - -He lay back in bed. He realised that the strongest claim in the world -upon him was the call of the hand. As for Mary—she was nothing different -from himself. For her as for him the call of the hand came -dictatorially. In each other they were one, but without the hand their -unity was uncompleted. The call of the hand must be obeyed. To-morrow -they must leave Greece behind. To-morrow to Serbia, to-morrow the -response to the hand. - -Mary was not surprised when Ivan without warning explained that all -their plans were altered. She was used to his unaccountable whims, the -sudden mystic impulses of his Slavonic soul. - -They packed up the few things which were all the impediment they -possessed, and next day saw them well started on their way to Monastir, -carefully skirting Athens. Arrived at Monastir, a few days elapsed -before they appeared at the remote wood where Ivan was born. The cottage -built by Ivan Kupreloff was not yet occupied. The strange character of -its former inhabitants combined with the terrible nature of Peter’s -death had succeeded in keeping it empty! They obtained permission from -its owner to occupy the cottage, and with a great sigh of content Ivan -flung open the door where he and his brother had passed so frequently in -former days. - -In a little time Mary had made of the house such a palace of delight as -it had not been since Ivan’s mother was dead. Happily, Ivan took in -large draughts of the Serbian pineland air, filling his lungs. Happily, -with Mary beside him on the bed where he and Peter had lain entwined, -the dark drowsy nights melted into dawn. He made his reply to the call -of the hand. Only faintly, if at all, the wind or the branches whispered -“Peter! Peter!” Peter seemed to be happy at last. The severed hand -seemed at last to be tranquil round the wrist of the murdered brother. -Then the winds died away, and there was no sound of “Peter!”; only -fitfully a swaying of twigs and a rustle of pine-needles. - -So it seemed. Till summer drooped her drowsing hair. Summer became -wrinkled and old. Summer went and the swift autumn came. The days -shortened into the rigours of winter, the days ever contracted towards -the anniversary of that red day when the axe was lifted and Peter fell. -Never a moment did it occur to Ivan that now when the fatal day was -approaching he might leave behind him his Serbian wood. He knew that, -more tightly than ever during his living days, the wrist of Peter lay -within his own hand, tight, unescapable. Mary and he lay under the thumb -of that severed hand wherefrom the red arrow glowed when the night was -dark and the woodfire threw leaping shadows over the log-walls. There -was no gainsaying the call of the hand till the end of days. Ivan knew -that never again would he leave behind his Serbian wood. - -Came the night which was the anniversary of that dead, unburyable night -when Peter’s doom had been sealed. Again there was the rumbling of -thunder, there were evil flashes of lightning that ran among the clouds. -Never with so firm an embrace had Mary been clasped within his arms. -Nothing in the world was so strong as his love for Mary. They had -responded to the call of the hand. There was no further claim upon them. -Ivan kissed her sleeping eyes and was lulled in the music of her -breathing. A drowsiness came over him, and for a time he slid into -sleep. - -In his sleep something tightened round him, something growing so tight -that it forced through the barriers of his sleep. Vaguely, faintly a -half-consciousness came back to him. He was not awake. He was not -asleep. He was in a borderland where the other world is not dead and -this world is half-alive. Tighter grew the thing which pressed against -his sleep. It was round his wrist, it was round the wrist where -something had once come crashing down. What was it? What was it had come -crashing down? An axe it was that had come crashing down. It was the -hand of Mary growing tighter round his wrist. No, it could not be the -hand of Mary. Mary had fallen from his arms. Mary was turned away from -him. He could see her hands pale where she had lifted them in sleep -above her head. It was not the hand of Mary growing tighter round his -wrist. But it was a hand. No doubt of that. It was a hand. With a dull -glow of flame a little red arrow gleamed like embers below the thumb of -the hand. Where had he seen that arrow? Where and when? When his hand -had fallen away from him, lopped at the wrist. It was the dead hand -which was not dead. It was his own hand. It was the hand with the red -arrow which had held Peter so tightly. It was the dead hand which was -alive, the living hand which had arisen from the dead. Tighter round his -wrist grew the pressure of the severed hand. The hand was tired of -calling. The hand had come. There was no gainsaying the hand. So tight -grew the clutch of the hand that his whole arm slowly lifted from his -side. Irresistibly the shoulder followed the rising arm. There was no -gainsaying the hand. Neither awake nor asleep, neither living nor dead, -he followed the hand, he rose from the bed where Mary lay, sleeping -sundered from him, his no more. Mary was alive. He was neither living -nor dead. The door of the room was opened wide. Closed doors were no -barrier against the hand which had arisen from the grave. Slowly, with -steady feet, with wide, filmy eyes, Ivan passed through the door. Slowly -through the outer door, slowly into the sound of thunder, into the gleam -of lightning and the voices of winds moaning unceasingly, “Peter! Peter! -He is calling you! Ivan! Peter is calling you! Follow!” and ever again -unceasingly, “Peter! Peter!” - -Tighter than the bonds of ice or granite hills, tight only as the bond -of death, the arisen hand held the lopped wrist, drew the slow body of -Ivan through the haunted night far into the wood, far through the -talking trees, far to the place of that tree which had not been cut -down, to the place where an axe had fallen through bones and flesh, -where Peter had fallen, where Peter lay buried, not deep down; where -Peter lay buried under twigs and loose earth. - -Tightly round the wrist of the man neither alive nor dead clutched the -resurrected hand. Nearer and nearer to the shallow grave the hand pulled -down the body of Ivan. Methodically, steadily, working with no pause, -the free hand of Ivan moved the twigs and the loose earth—methodically, -with no pause, until at last the body of Peter lay revealed; not -recognisable, dissolute beneath the change through which all men shall -pass, recognisable only to those filmy eyes of Ivan, to that questing -hungry soul of Ivan which had come to claim its own. Closer and closer -to the dead brother the severed hand drew the body of Ivan down; so -close, so close, until at last the hand clutched again and for ever that -wrist to which Fate had fastened it long years ago. Alongside of his -dead brother, quietly, with those eyes which neither saw nor did not -see, Ivan lay down full length. Gradually the severed hand, the hand -which had arisen from the dead to claim him, because the dead brother -called and the severed hand called for its own, gradually the hand -slipped from the lopped wrist; the wrist and the arm became one. The -hand of Ivan had brought Ivan to his own. Indissolubly, Peter and Ivan -lay joined together. But the death which lay cold in the heart and body -of Peter passed from the clutched wrist, passed into the hand which -clutched it, passed along the arm which had been severed once, and along -Ivan’s shoulder, until it made his eyes unseeing discs and of his heart -cold stone which could beat no more. - -As the grey light of dawn came emptily down the Serbian woods, the two -brothers lay immortally one again, like the two babies the gods had -given Nikolai Kupreloff upon a long-vanished night. - - - - -THE SENTIMENTAL MORTGAGE - -By ARTHUR LYNCH - - -“I can account for the man,” said Carstairs, “but what I am curious -about is the feelings of the girl. He blew out his brains in her -presence, and he did it immediately after she had told him to be gone. -Dramatic of him. He did it for love of her—a warm passion. I suppose -that that would be the deepest idea in her mind.” - -“He was a man of his word, at any rate,” said Miss Landells, “for of all -the heroes who are eternally swearing they could die for a smile and all -the rest of it, hardly one would wet his boots unless he thought he -could gain something by it.... I dare say she had begun by despising -him, and when he blew out his brains felt some respect for him. Probably -if he were alive again, though, she would act in the same way.” - -“I think I could put a harder case,” said the Colonel, “one where a man -sacrificed more——” - -“Sacrificed more?” - -“Yes; a man might easily blow out his brains in a burst of rage or -disappointment, but that proves little. Blantyre, the man of whom I was -thinking, did more, and the girl—Miss Trafford—had therefore to deal -with a more complex problem.” - -With a warning that we might think the story gruesome, the Colonel told -it. - - * * * * * - -To understand the circumstances it is necessary to know something of -Blantyre’s character. When I knew him first he had the rank of Captain. -I being second lieutenant and our relations not being very familiar, I -only knew him from what might be called an outsider’s point of view. I -hardly think, however, that anyone knew him much better. That will give -you a hint—he was a reserved man. Yet he had a fund of high-spirits; -also a witty manner, which was at times playful and yet sometimes -bitter. - -He was an unusually handsome man. Above average height, slender but -well-made and active, he had regular features, dark complexion and -black, blue-black hair. It was said that he had a dash of the -“tar-brush”—Indian, you know—and this fact, trivial as it may appear, -had, I believe, a powerful influence on his life. I know as a fact, that -he became more reserved after a rather unpleasant occurrence, when an -ill-bred young spark, losing his temper in an argument, called him a -Dago. - -Blantyre was always a serious sort of chap. He wrote for the _United -Service Review_ and the _Engineering Magazine_, and other technical -journals, partly of course for the interest he took in that sort of -thing, but also because he was not well-off. That too was his reason for -taking as little part as possible in dances, picnics and the other -little flutters by which we amused ourselves. He seemed, in fact, rather -a fish out of water, and I used to wonder why he remained in the -Service; but he was not only of an energetic and resolute habit of mind, -but also intensely ambitious. - -He had the misfortune to fall in love with the prettiest, the most -spoilt and, I believe, the most selfish, minx in England. The word -“brilliancy” was always on her lips, and she thought of nothing but -pleasure and excitement. She was then about twenty. - -Imagine her reception of him when, carried off his feet, he proposed to -her. She laughed in his face and, I am told, asked him if he were “an -Indian Nabob”! - -She probably only meant that the man who married her must be able to -give her the sort of life to which she was accustomed; and had not -realized—she took it all so lightly and really cared for Blantyre so -little—what the phrase might mean to him. His poverty and his supposed -origin—no words could have cut more deeply. - -That very night, he set the wheels in motion and shortly after was -transferred to the Indian battalion. For the next seven years he put in -as much fighting on the frontiers as was humanly possible. He seemed the -veriest glutton for danger, never spared himself, and yet people said he -fought without enthusiasm or any warmth of blood. Oh, I grant you a -queer chap! - -At first his men rather disliked him, but in time they became impressed -by his courage and dash, and they soon grew to rely on his steady, his -inexorable justice. He was never a popular man, too stiff and too -reserved, but his men would have followed him to certain death. They -called him “The Sabre Prince.” - -After seven years Blantyre was back amongst us, but by that time he had -risen to be Colonel, and his reputation was unique. He was then about -thirty-five, still, you see, a young man, and quite naturally London -went mad over him. He became the lion that particular season. - -But India had left her marks on him. He had returned minus his right -arm, and the once blue-black hair was grey. However, he was still as -handsome as ever and had the air of a man who has seen and dealt with -matters of importance. In other words he was distingué. Also he was -still in love with Miss Trafford. - -Nor had time and experience and that unique reputation of his failed of -their effect on her. As often happens to a woman of her type she had -failed to bring off a match commensurate with her ambitions, and at -twenty-seven was still unmarried. - -The news of their engagement set everybody gossipping. His infatuation -was recalled, and it was said she had refused a great alliance in order -to wait for him. The story even got into the newspapers. - -I was not a little pleased, I can tell you, to hear that they were to be -married. She was still wonderfully pretty and, rumour said, less vain -and spoilt. It might be that she would settle down and make him a good -wife. Anyway he wanted her, he had wanted her for a long time, and he -was going to get what he wanted. Blantyre himself wrote to tell me, and -I think the next few weeks were the happiest of his life. - -Judge then, of my surprise—sorrow, too—to learn one day, and again from -Blantyre himself that the marriage was off, that he had resigned his -commission and got an engineering job abroad. - -Of course I hurried to see him. He was much as usual, cool, collected, -finely-tempered. In fact when I entered he looked up with a smile—and I -had always thought his smile lighting up that austere face peculiarly -winning. - -It appeared that it was he who had broken off their engagement, and the -matter can be put in a nutshell—he had found her out. Mercenary motives, -no real affection—also, while he himself had grown and developed, she -had remained the social butterfly. - -He told me—what I had not known—the story of his rejection seven years -previously. He had believed he was not worthy of her, and he had gone to -India to fight his way up to her standard. When he came back he had -believed her story, believed she had waited.... - -Then he had heard things. People talk, you know. I don’t know that he -believed what he was told, but what wrung him to the very vitals was -that he should have loved so deeply something that was—well, a poor -thing, unworthy. - -Miss Trafford was in no temper to be jilted. She even went the length of -putting the case into her lawyer’s hands for breach of promise. - - * * * * * - -“Before I leave England,” he said, “I mean as far as I can to satisfy -justice. The law, I suppose, could not get more from me than I possess, -and everything I have, I mean to give her. It was she who sent me to -India, and I will strip myself for her of everything I gained there. -Will you take my medals?” and he offered me a little mahogany, -gold-ornamented box. “Keep them as a memento. I do not want them. I—I -feel I may have won them fighting against my own people.” - -In his words was a something of grief and even shame. I felt I was -looking at a man who regretted what could not be helped, who would -regret it for the remainder of his days. - -“There is only now my property in Devonshire. That I have made over to -Miss Trafford. The deeds are in this box. The property is a small one -but it has now no encumbrances. I have been able to clear off -everything; except—” he said musingly—“except something she may or may -not regard as a detriment—it is a sort of Sentimental Mortgage.” - -“A skeleton in the cupboard?” said I, thinking of some ghost story, or -creepy legend, or the like. - -“Precisely. You have hit it. A skeleton in the cupboard.” - -“But, but,” said I, trying to bring him back to the business side of the -matter, “this is not justice, justice to yourself.” - -“When all is said and done,” he returned quietly, “you will recognise -that justice—inexorable justice. Money, position, even reputation are -nothing to me now.... No, I am not going to kill myself. I have accepted -a post in an enterprise which, if successful, will make a more enduring -mark, bring me greater wealth, perhaps even fame, than those frontier -exploits of mine.” - -I was relieved to hear of his fresh interests. - -“I am undertaking the survey of a line to open up the hinterlands of -Argentine. If that be successful, I shall hope to superintend the work. -If I do not succeed—well, at any rate I shall have made a beginning, and -my successor may find encouragement in the spirit in which I have led -the way. But I am dreaming ... I wish you to take this box containing -the deeds, and present it to her—if you will do me that last favour.” - -I promised. - - * * * * * - -I brought the box to her and presented it with ceremony. She was always -charming. She begged me to wait while she opened it. - -When I spoke of the “skeleton in the cupboard” I had little guessed how -startlingly true the words must have sounded. It was her fault that -Blantyre had gone to India, and with the gift lay the rebuke, for the -skeleton grasped the deeds. - - * * * * * - -“The skeleton, Colonel?” - -“Yes, the skeleton of his right hand.” - - - - -CAPTAIN SHARKEY - -HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT’S CAME HOME - -By A. CONAN DOYLE - - -When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end -by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been -fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some -took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, -others were absorbed into the fishing-fleets, and a few of the more -reckless hoisted the Jolly Rodger at the mizzen and the bloody flag at -the main, declaring a private war upon their own account against the -whole human race. - -With mixed crews, recruited from every nation, they scoured the seas, -disappearing occasionally to careen in some lonely inlet, or putting in -for a debauch at some outlying port, where they dazzled the inhabitants -by their lavishness and horrified them by their brutalities. - -On the Coromandel Coast, at Madagascar, in the African waters, and above -all in the West Indian and American seas, the pirates were a constant -menace. With an insolent luxury they would regulate their depredations -by the comfort of the seasons, harrying New England in the summer and -dropping south again to the tropical islands in the winter. - -They were the more to be dreaded because they had none of that -discipline and restraint which made their predecessors, the Buccaneers, -both formidable and respectable. These Ishmaels of the sea rendered an -account to no man, and treated their prisoners according to the drunken -whim of the moment. Flashes of grotesque generosity alternated with -longer stretches of inconceivable ferocity, and the skipper who fell -into their hands might find himself dismissed with his cargo, after -serving as boon companion in some hideous debauch, or might sit at his -cabin table with his own nose and his lips served up with pepper and -salt in front of him. It took a stout seaman in those days to ply his -calling in the Caribbean Gulf. - -Such a man was Captain John Scarrow, of the ship _Morning Star_, and yet -he breathed a long sigh of relief when he heard the splash of the -falling anchor and swung at his moorings within a hundred yards of the -guns of the citadel of Basseterre. St. Kitt’s was his final port of -call, and early next morning his bowsprit would be pointed for Old -England. He had had enough of those robber-haunted seas. Ever since he -had left Maracaibo upon the Main, with his full lading of sugar and red -pepper, he had winced at every topsail which glimmered over the violet -edge of the tropical sea. He had coasted up the Windward Islands, -touching here and there, and assailed continually by stories of villainy -and outrage. - -Captain Sharkey, of the 20-gun pirate barque _Happy Delivery_, had -passed down the coast, and had littered it with gutted vessels and with -murdered men. Dreadful anecdotes were current of his grim pleasantries -and of his inflexible ferocity. From the Bahamas to the Main his -coal-black barque, with the ambiguous name, had been freighted with -death and many things which are worse than death. So nervous was Captain -Scarrow, with his new full-rigged ship and her full and valuable lading, -that he struck out to the west as far as Bird’s Island to be out of the -usual track of commerce. And yet even in those solitary waters he had -been unable to shake off sinister traces of Captain Sharkey. - -One morning they had raised a single skiff adrift upon the face of the -ocean. Its only occupant was a delirious seaman, who yelled hoarsely as -they hoisted him aboard, and showed a dried-up tongue like a black and -wrinkled fungus at the back of his mouth. Water and nursing soon -transformed him into the strongest and smartest sailor on the ship. He -was from Marblehead, in New England, it seemed, and was the sole -survivor of a schooner which had been scuttled by the dreadful Sharkey. - -For a week Hiram Evanson, for that was his name, had been adrift beneath -a tropical sun. Sharkey had ordered the mangled remains of his late -captain to be thrown into the boat, “as provisions for the voyage,” but -the seaman had at once committed them to the deep, lest the temptation -should be more than he could bear. He had lived upon his own huge frame -until, at the last moment, the _Morning Star_ had found him in that -madness which is the precursor of such a death. It was no bad find for -Captain Scarrow, for, with a short-handed crew, such a seaman as this -big New Englander was a prize worth having. He vowed that he was the -only man whom Captain Sharkey had ever placed under an obligation. - -Now that they lay under the guns of Basseterre, all danger from the -pirate was at an end, and yet the thought of him lay heavily upon the -seaman’s mind as he watched the agent’s boat shooting out from the -custom-house quay. - -“I’ll lay you a wager, Morgan,” said he to the first mate, “that the -agent will speak of Sharkey in the first hundred words that pass his -lips.” - -“Well, captain, I’ll have you a silver dollar, and chance it,” said the -rough old Bristol man beside him. - -The negro rowers shot the boat alongside, and the linen-clad steersman -sprang up the ladder. - -“Welcome, Captain Scarrow!” he cried. “Have you heard about Sharkey?” - -The captain grinned at the mate. - -“What devilry has he been up to now?” he asked. - -“Devilry! You’ve not heard, then! Why, we’ve got him safe under lock and -key here at Basseterre. He was tried last Wednesday, and he is to be -hanged to-morrow morning.” - -Captain and mate gave a shout of joy, which an instant later was taken -up by the crew. Discipline was forgotten as they scrambled up through -the break of the poop to hear the news. The New Englander was in the -front of them with a radiant face turned up to heaven, for he came of -the Puritan stock. - -“Sharkey to be hanged!” he cried. “You don’t know, Master Agent, if they -lack a hangman, do you?” - -“Stand back!” cried the mate, whose outraged sense of discipline was -even stronger than his interest at the news. “I’ll pay that dollar, -Captain Scarrow, with the lightest heart that ever I paid a wager yet. -How came the villain to be taken?” - -“Why, as to that, he became more than his own comrades could abide, and -they took such a horror of him that they would not have him on the ship. -So they marooned him upon the Little Mangles to the south of the -Mysteriosa Bank, and there he was found by a Portobello trader, who -brought him in. There was talk of sending him to Jamaica to be tried, -but our good little governor, Sir Charles Ewan, would not hear of it. -‘He’s my meat,’ said he, ‘and I claim the cooking of it.’ If you can -stay till to-morrow morning at ten, you’ll see the point swinging.” - -“I wish I could,” said the captain wistfully, “but I am sadly behind -time now. I should start with the evening tide.” - -“That you can’t do,” said the agent with decision. “The Governor is -going back with you.” - -“The Governor!” - -“Yes. He’s had a dispatch from Government to return without delay. The -fly-boat that brought it has gone on to Virginia. So Sir Charles has -been waiting for you, as I told him you were due before the rains.” - -“Well, well!” cried the captain, in some perplexity, “I’m a plain -seaman, and I don’t know much of governors and baronets and their ways. -I don’t remember that I ever so much as spoke to one. But if it’s in -King George’s service, and he asks a cast in the _Morning Star_ as far -as London, I’ll do what I can for him. There’s my own cabin he can have -and welcome. As to the cooking, it’s lobscouse and salmagundy six days -in the week; but he can bring his own cook aboard with him if he thinks -our galley too rough for his taste.” - -“You need not trouble your mind, Captain Scarrow,” said the agent. “Sir -Charles is in weak health just now, only clear of a quartan ague, and it -is likely he will keep his cabin most of the voyage. Dr. Larousse said -that he would have sunk had the hanging of Sharkey not put fresh life in -him. He has a great spirit in him, though, you must not blame him if he -is somewhat short in his speech.” - -“He may say what he likes and do what he likes so long as he does not -come athwart my hawse when I am working the ship,” said the captain. “He -is Governor of St. Kitt’s, but I am Governor of the _Morning Star_. And, -by his leave, I must weigh with the first tide, for I owe a duty to my -employer, just as he does to King George.” - -“He can scarce be ready to-night, for he has many things to set in order -before he leaves.” - -“The early morning tide, then.” - -“Very good. I shall send his things aboard to-night, and he will follow -them to-morrow early if I can prevail upon him to leave St. Kitt’s -without seeing Sharkey do the rogue’s hornpipe. His own orders were -instant, so it may be that he will come at once. It is likely that Dr. -Larousse may attend him upon the journey.” - -Left to themselves, the captain and mate made the best preparations -which they could for their illustrious passenger. The largest cabin was -turned out and adorned in his honour, and orders were given by which -barrels of fruit and some cases of wine should be brought off to vary -the plain food of an ocean-going trader. In the evening the Governor’s -baggage began to arrive—great ironbound ant-proof trunks, and official -tin packing-cases, with other strange-shaped packages, which suggested -the cocked hat or sword within. And then there came a note, with a -heraldic device upon the big red seal, to say that Sir Charles Ewan made -his compliments to Captain Scarrow, and that he hoped to be with him in -the morning as early as his duties and his infirmities would permit. - -He was as good as his word, for the first grey of dawn had hardly begun -to deepen into pink when he was brought alongside, and climbed with some -difficulty up the ladder. The captain had heard the Governor was an -eccentric, but he was hardly prepared for the curious figure who came -limping feebly down his quarter-deck, his steps supported by a thick -bamboo cane. He wore a Ramillies wig, all twisted into little tails like -a poodle’s coat, and cut so low across the brow that the large green -glasses which covered his eyes looked as if they were hung from it. A -fierce beak of a nose, very long and very thin, cut the air in front of -him. His ague had caused him to swathe his throat and chin with a broad -linen cravat, and he wore a loose damask powdering-gown secured by a -cord round the waist. As he advanced he carried his masterful nose high -in the air, but his head turned slowly from side to side in the helpless -manner of the purblind, and he called in a high, querulous voice for the -captain. - -“You have my things?” he asked. - -“Yes, Sir Charles.” - -“Have you wine aboard?” - -“I have ordered five cases, sir” - -“And tobacco?” - -“There is a keg of Trinidad.” - -“You play a hand of piquet?” - -“Passably well, sir.” - -“Then up anchor, and to sea!” - -There was a fresh westerly wind, so by the time the sun was fairly -through the morning haze, the ship was hull down from the islands. The -decrepit Governor still limped the deck, with one guiding hand upon the -quarter-rail. - -“You are on Government service now, captain,” said he. “They are -counting the days till I come to Westminster, I promise you. Have you -all that she will carry?” - -“Every inch, Sir Charles.” - -“Keep her so if you blow the sails out of her. I fear, Captain Scarrow, -that you will find a blind and broken man a poor companion for your -voyage.” - -“I am honoured in enjoying your Excellency’s society,” said the captain. -“But I am sorry that your eyes should be so afflicted.” - -“Yes, indeed. It is the cursed glare of the sun on the white streets of -Basseterre which has gone far to burn them out.” - -“I had heard also that you had been plagued by a quartan ague.” - -“Yes; I have had a pyrexy, which has reduced me much.” - -“We had set aside a cabin for your surgeon.” - -“Ah, the rascal! There was no budging him, for he has a snug business -amongst the merchants. But hark!” - -He raised his ring-covered hand in the air. From far astern there came -the low deep thunder of cannon. - -“It is from the island!” cried the captain in astonishment. “Can it be a -signal for us to put back?” - -The Governor laughed. - -“You have heard that Sharkey, the pirate, is to be hanged this morning. -I ordered the batteries to salute when the rascal was kicking his last, -so that I might know of it out at sea. There’s an end of Sharkey!” - -“There’s an end of Sharkey!” cried the captain; and the crew took up the -cry as they gathered in little knots upon the deck and stared back at -the low, purple line of the vanishing land. - -It was a cheering omen for their start across the Western Ocean, and the -invalid Governor found himself a popular man on board, for it was -generally understood that but for his insistence upon an immediate trial -and sentence, the villain might have played upon some more venal judge -and so escaped. At dinner that day Sir Charles gave many anecdotes of -the deceased pirate; and so affable was he, and so skilful in adapting -his conversation to men of lower degree, that captain, mate, and -Governor smoked their long pipes and drank their claret as three good -comrades should. - -“And what figure did Sharkey cut in the dock?” asked the captain. - -“He is a man of some presence,” said the Governor. - -“I had always understood that he was an ugly, sneering devil,” remarked -the mate. - -“Well, I dare say he could look ugly upon occasions,” said the Governor. - -“I have heard a New Bedford whaleman say that he could not forget his -eyes,” said Captain Scarrow. “They were of the lightest filmy blue, with -red-rimmed lids. Was that not so, Sir Charles?” - -“Alas, my own eyes will not permit me to know much of those of others! -But I remember now that the Adjutant-General said that he had such an -eye as you describe, and added that the jury were so foolish as to be -visibly discomposed when it was turned upon them. It is well for them -that he is dead, for he was a man who would never forget an injury, and -if he had laid hands upon any one of them he would have stuffed him with -straw and hung him for a figure-head.” - -The idea seemed to amuse the Governor, for he broke suddenly into a -high, neighing laugh, and the two seamen laughed also, but not so -heartily, for they remembered that Sharkey was not the last pirate who -sailed the western seas, and that as grotesque a fate might come to be -their own. Another bottle was broached to drink for a pleasant voyage, -and the Governor would drink just one other on top of it, so that the -seamen were glad at last to stagger off—the one to his watch and the -other to his bunk. But when after his four hours’ spell the mate came -down again, he was amazed to see the Governor in his Ramillies wig, his -glasses, and his powdering-gown still seated sedately at the lonely -table with his reeking pipe and six black bottles by his side. - -“I have drunk with the Governor of St. Kitt’s when he was sick,” said -he, “and God forbid that I should ever try to keep pace with him when he -is well.” - -The voyage of the _Morning Star_ was a successful one, and in about -three weeks she was at the mouth of the British Channel. From the first -day the infirm Governor had begun to recover his strength, and before -they were half-way across the Atlantic he was, save only for his eyes, -as well as any man upon the ship. Those who uphold the nourishing -qualities of wine might point to him in triumph, for never a night -passed that he did not repeat the performance of his first one. And yet -he would be out upon deck in the early morning as fresh and brisk as the -best of them, peering about with his weak eyes, and asking questions -about the sail and the rigging, for he was anxious to learn the ways of -the sea. And he made up for the deficiency of his eyes by obtaining -leave from the captain that the New England seaman—he who had been cast -away in the boat—should lead him about, and above all that he should sit -beside him when he played cards and count the number of the pips, for -unaided he could not tell the king from the knave. - -It was natural that this Evanson should do the Governor willing service, -since the one was the victim of the vile Sharkey, and the other was his -avenger. One could see that it was a pleasure to the big American to -lend his arm to the invalid, and at night he would stand with all -respect behind his chair in the cabin and lay his great stub-nailed -fore-finger upon the card which he should play. Between them there was -little in the pockets either of Captain Scarrow or of Morgan, the first -mate, by the time they sighted the Lizard. - -And it was not long before they found that all they had heard of the -high temper of Sir Charles Ewan fell short of the mark. At a sign of -opposition or a word of argument his chin would shoot out from his -cravat, his masterful nose would be cocked at a higher and more insolent -angle, and his bamboo cane would whistle up over his shoulder. He -cracked it once over the head of the carpenter when the man had -accidentally jostled him upon the deck. Once, too, when there was some -grumbling and talk of mutiny over the state of the provisions, he was of -opinion that they should not wait for the dogs to rise, but that they -should march forward and set upon them until they had trounced the -devilment out of them. “Give me a knife and a bucket!” he cried with an -oath, and could hardly be withheld from setting forth alone to deal with -the spokesman of the seamen. - -Captain Scarrow had to remind him that though he might be only -answerable to himself at St. Kitt’s, killing became murder upon the high -seas. In politics he was, as became his official position, a stout prop -of the House of Hanover, and he swore in his cups that he had never met -a Jacobite without pistolling him where he stood. Yet for all his -vapouring and his violence he was so good a companion, with such a -stream of strange anecdote and reminiscence, that Scarrow and Morgan had -never known a voyage pass so pleasantly. - -And then at length came the last day, when, after passing the island, -they had struck land again at the high white cliffs at Beachy Head. As -evening fell the ship lay rolling in an oily calm, a league off from -Winchelsea, with the long dark snout of Dungeness jutting out in front -of her. Next morning they would pick up their pilot at the Foreland, and -Sir Charles might meet the king’s ministers at Westminster before the -evening. The boatswain had the watch, and the three friends were met for -a last turn of cards in the cabin, the faithful American still serving -as eyes to the Governor. There was a good stake upon the table, for the -sailors had tried on this last night to win their losses back from their -passenger. Suddenly he threw all his cards down, and swept all the money -into his long-flapped silken waistcoat. - -“The game’s mine!” said he. - -“Heh, Sir Charles, not so fast!” cried Captain Scarrow; “you have not -played out the hand, and we are not the losers.” - -“Sink you for a liar!” said the Governor. “I tell you that I _have_ -played out the hand, and that you _are_ a loser.” He whipped off his wig -and his glasses as he spoke, and there was a high, bald forehead, and a -pair of shifty blue eyes with the red rims of a bull terrier. - -“Good God!” cried the mate. “It’s Sharkey!” - -The two sailors sprang from their seats, but the big American castaway -had put his huge back against the cabin door, and he held a pistol in -each of his hands. The passenger had also laid a pistol upon the -scattered cards in front of him, and he burst into his high, neighing -laugh. - -“Captain Sharkey is the name, gentlemen,” said he, “and this is Roaring -Ned Galloway, the quartermaster of the _Happy Delivery_. We made it hot, -and so they marooned us: me on a dry Tortuga cay, and him in an oarless -boat. You dogs—you poor, fond, water-hearted dogs—we hold you at the end -of our pistols!” - -“You may shoot, or you may not!” cried Scarrow, striking his hand upon -the breast of his frieze jacket. “If it’s my last breath, Sharkey, I -tell you that you are a bloody rogue and miscreant, with a halter and -hell-fire in store for you!” - -“There’s a man of spirit, and one of my own kidney, and he’s going to -make a pretty death of it!” cried Sharkey. “There’s no one aft save the -man at the wheel, so you may keep your breath, for you’ll need it soon. -Is the dinghy astern, Ned?” - -“Ay, ay, captain!” - -“And the other boats scuttled?” - -“I bored them all in three places.” - -“Then we shall have to leave you, Captain Scarrow. You look as if you -hadn’t quite got your bearings yet. Is there anything you’d like to ask -me?” - -“I believe you’re the devil himself!” cried the captain. “Where is the -Governor of St. Kitt’s?” - -“When last I saw him his Excellency was in bed with his throat cut. When -I broke prison I learnt from my friends—for Captain Sharkey has those -who love him in every port—that the Governor was starting for Europe -under a master who had never seen him. I climbed his verandah and I paid -him the little debt that I owed him. Then I came aboard you with such of -his things as I had need of, and a pair of glasses to hide these -tell-tale eyes of mine, and I have ruffled it as a Governor should. Now, -Ned, you can get to work upon them.” - -“Help! Help! Watch ahoy!” yelled the mate; but the butt of the pirate’s -pistol crashed down on his head, and he dropped like a pithed ox. -Scarrow rushed for the door, but the sentinel clapped his hand over his -mouth, and threw his other arm round his waist. - -“No use, Master Scarrow,” said Sharkey. “Let us see you go down on your -knees and beg for your life.” - -“I’ll see you—” cried Scarrow, shaking his mouth clear. - -“Twist his arm round, Ned. Now will you?” - -“No; not if you twist it off.” - -“Put an inch of your knife into him.” - -“You may put six inches, and then I won’t.” - -“Sink me, but I like his spirit!” cried Sharkey. “Put your knife in your -pocket, Ned. You’ve saved your skin, Scarrow, and it’s a pity so stout a -man should not take to the only trade where a pretty fellow can pick up -a living. You must be born for no common death, Scarrow, since you have -lain at my mercy and lived to tell the story. Tie him up, Ned.” - -“To the stove, captain?” - -“Tut, tut! there’s a fire in the stove. None of your rover tricks, Ned -Galloway, unless they are called for, or I’ll let you know which one of -us two is captain and which is quartermaster. Make him fast to the -table.” - -“Nay, I thought you meant to roast him!” said the quartermaster. “You -surely do not mean to let him go?” - -“If you and I were marooned on a Bahama cay, Ned Galloway, it is still -for me to command and for you to obey. Sink you for a villain, do you -dare to question my orders?” - -“Nay, nay, Captain Sharkey, not so hot, sir!” said the quartermaster, -and, lifting Scarrow like a child, he laid him on the table. With the -quick dexterity of a seaman, he tied his spreadeagled hands and feet -with a rope which was passed underneath, and gagged him securely with -the long cravat which used to adorn the chin of the Governor of St. -Kitt’s. - -“Now, Captain Scarrow, we must take our leave of you,” said the pirate. -“If I had half a dozen of my brisk boys at my heels I should have had -your cargo and your ship, but Roaring Ned could not find a foremast hand -with the spirit of a mouse. I see there are some small craft about, and -we shall get one of them. When Captain Sharkey has a boat he can get a -smack, when he has a smack he can get a brig, when he has a brig he can -get a barque, and when he has a barque he’ll soon have a full-rigged -ship of his own—so make haste into London town, or I may be coming back, -after all, for the _Morning Star_.” - -Captain Scarrow heard the key turn in the lock as they left the cabin. -Then, as he strained at his bonds, he heard their footsteps pass up the -companion and along the quarter-deck to where the dinghy hung in the -stern. Then, still struggling and writhing, he heard the creak of the -falls and the splash of the boat in the water. In a mad fury he tore and -dragged at his ropes, until at last, with flayed wrists and ankles, he -rolled from the table, sprang over the dead mate, kicked his way through -the closed door, and rushed hatless on to the deck. - -“Ahoy! Peterson, Armitage, Wilson!” he screamed. “Cutlasses and pistols! -Clear away the long-boat! Clear away the gig! Sharkey, the pirate, is in -yonder dinghy. Whistle up the larboard watch, bo’sun, and tumble into -the boats all hands.” - -Down splashed the long-boat and down splashed the gig, but in an instant -the coxswains and crews were swarming up the falls on to the deck once -more. - -“The boats are scuttled!” they cried. “They are leaking like a sieve.” - -The captain gave a bitter curse. He had been beaten and outwitted at -every point. Above was a cloudless, starlit sky, with neither wind nor -the promise of it. The sails flapped idly in the moonlight. Far away lay -a fishing-smack, with the men clustering over their net. - -Close to them was the little dinghy, dipping and lifting over the -shining swell. - -“They are dead men!” cried the captain. “A shout all together, boys, to -warn them of their danger.” - -But it was too late. - -At that very moment the dinghy shot into the shadow of the fishing-boat. -There were two rapid pistol-shots, a scream, and then another -pistol-shot, followed by silence. The clustering fishermen had -disappeared. And then, suddenly, as the first puffs of a land-breeze -came out from the Sussex shore, the boom swung out, the mainsail filled, -and the little craft crept out with her nose to the Atlantic. - - - - -VIOLENCE - -By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD - - From Ten Minute Stories, by Algernon Blackwood, - by permission of E. P. Dutton and Company. - - -“But what seems so odd to me, so horribly pathetic, is that such people -don’t resist,” said Leidall, suddenly entering the conversation. The -intensity of his tone startled everybody; it was so passionate, yet with -a beseeching touch that made the women feel uncomfortable a little. “As -a rule, I’m told, they submit willingly, almost as though——” - -He hesitated, grew confused, and dropped his glance to the floor; and a -smartly-dressed woman, eager to be heard, seized the opening. “Oh, come -now,” she laughed; “one always hears of a man being _put_ into a strait -waistcoat. I’m sure he doesn’t slip it on as if he were going to a -dance!” And she looked flippantly at Leidall, whose casual manners she -resented. “People are put under restraint. It’s not in human nature to -accept it—healthy human nature, that is?” But for some reason no one -took her question up. “That is so, I believe, yes,” a polite voice -murmured, while the group at tea in the Dover Street Club turned with -one accord to Leidall as to one whose interesting sentence still -remained unfinished. He had hardly spoken before, and a silent man is -ever credited with wisdom. - -“As though—you were just saying, Mr. Leidall?” a quiet little man in a -dark corner helped him. - -“As though, I meant, a man in that condition of mind is not insane all -through,” Leidall continued stammeringly; “but that some wise portion of -him watches the proceeding with gratitude, and welcomes the protection -against himself. It seems awfully pathetic. Still”—again hesitating and -fumbling in his speech—“er—it seems queer to me that he should yield -quietly to enforced restraint—the waistcoat, handcuffs, and the rest.” -He looked round hurriedly, half suspiciously, at the faces in the -circle, then dropped his eyes again to the floor. He sighed, leaning -back in his chair. “I cannot understand it,” he added, as no one spoke, -but in a very low voice, and almost to himself. “One would expect them -to struggle furiously.” - -Someone had mentioned that remarkable book, _The Mind that Found -Itself_, and the conversation had slipped into this serious vein. The -women did not like it. What kept it alive was the fact that the silent -Leidall, with his handsome, melancholy face, had suddenly wakened into -speech, and that the little man opposite to him, half invisible in his -dark corner, was assistant to one of London’s great hypnotic doctors, -who could, an he would, tell interesting and terrible things. No one -cared to ask the direct question, but all hoped for revelations, -possibly about people they actually knew. It was a very ordinary -tea-party indeed. And this little man now spoke, though hardly in the -desired vein. He addressed his remarks to Leidall across the -disappointed lady. - -“I think, probably, your explanation is the true one,” he said gently, -“for madness in its commoner forms is merely want of proportion; the -mind gets out of right and proper relations with its environment. The -majority of madmen are mad on one thing only, while the rest of them is -as sane as myself—or you.” - -The words fell into the silence. Leidall bowed his agreement, saying no -actual word. The ladies fidgeted. Someone made a jocular remark to the -effect that most of the world was mad anyhow, and the conversation -shifted with relief into a lighter vein—the scandal in the family of a -politician. Everybody talked at once. Cigarettes were lit. The corner -soon became excited and even uproarious. The tea-party was a great -success, and the offended lady, no longer ignored, led all the -skirmishes—towards herself. She was in her element. Only Leidall and the -little invisible man in the corner took small part in it; and presently, -seizing the opportunity when some new arrivals joined the group, Leidall -rose to say his adieux, and slipped away, his departure scarcely -noticed. Dr. Hancock followed him a minute later. The two men met in the -hall; Leidall already had his hat and coat on. “I’m going West, Mr. -Leidall. If that’s your way too, and you feel inclined for the walk, we -might go together.” Leidall turned with a start. His glance took in the -other with avidity—a keenly-searching, hungry glance. He hesitated for -an imperceptible moment, then made a movement towards him, half -inviting, while a curious shadow dropped across his face and vanished. -It was both pathetic and terrible. The lips trembled. He seemed to say, -“God bless you; _do_ come with me!” But no words were audible. - -“It’s a pleasant evening for a walk,” added Dr. Hancock gently; “clean -and dry under foot for a change. I’ll get my hat and join you in a -second.” And there was a hint, the merest flavour, of authority in his -voice. - -That touch of authority was his mistake. Instantly Leidall’s hesitation -passed. “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, “but I’m afraid I must take a -taxi. I have an appointment at the Club, and I’m late already.” “Oh, I -see,” the other replied, with a kindly smile; “then I mustn’t keep you. -But if you ever have a free evening, won’t you look me up, or come and -dine? You’ll find my telephone number in the book. I should like to talk -with you about—those things we mentioned at tea.” Leidall thanked him -politely and went out. The memory of the little man’s kindly sympathy -and understanding eyes went with him. - -“Who was that man?” someone asked, the moment Leidall had left the -tea-table. “Surely he’s not the Leidall who wrote that awful book some -years ago?” - -“Yes—the _Gulf of Darkness_. Did you read it?” - -They discussed it and its author for five minutes, deciding by a large -majority that it was the book of a madman. Silent, rude men like that -always had a screw loose somewhere, they agreed. Silence was invariably -morbid. - -“And did you notice Dr. Hancock? He never took his eyes off him. That’s -why he followed him out like that. I wonder if _he_ thought anything!” - -“I know Hancock well,” said the lady of the wounded vanity. “I’ll ask -him and find out.” They chattered on, somebody mentioned a _risqué_ -play, the talk switched into other fields, and in due course the -tea-party came to an end. - -And Leidall, meanwhile, made his way towards the Park on foot, for he -had not taken a taxi after all. The suggestion of the other man, -perhaps, had worked upon him. He was very open to suggestion. With hands -deep in his overcoat pockets, and head sunk forward between his -shoulders, he walked briskly, entering the Park at one of the smaller -gates. He made his way across the wet turf, avoiding the paths and -people. The February sky was shining in the west; beautiful clouds -floated over the houses; they looked like the shore-line of some radiant -strand his childhood once had known. He sighed; thought dived and -searched within; self-analysis, that old, implacable demon, lifted its -voice; introspection took the reins again as usual. There seemed a -strain upon the mind he could not dispel. Thought circled poignantly. He -knew it was unhealthy, morbid, a sign of those many years of difficulty -and stress that had marked him so deeply, but for the life of him he -could not escape from the hideous spell that held him. The same old -thoughts bored their way into his mind like burning wires, tracing the -same unanswerable questions. From this torture, waking or sleeping, -there was no escape. Had a companion been with him it might have been -different. If, for instance, Dr. Hancock—— - -He was angry with himself for having refused—furious; it was that vile, -false pride his long loneliness had fostered. The man was sympathetic to -him, friendly, marvellously understanding; he could have talked freely -with him, and found relief. His intuition had picked out the little -doctor as a man in ten thousand. Why had he so curtly declined his -gentle invitation? Dr. Hancock _knew_; he guessed his awful secret. But -how? In what had he betrayed himself? - -The weary self-questioning began again, till he sighed and groaned from -sheer exhaustion. He _must_ find people, companionship, someone to talk -to. The Club—it crossed his tortured mind for a second—was impossible; -there was a conspiracy among the members against him. He had left his -usual haunts everywhere for the same reason—his restaurants where he had -his lonely meals; his music-hall, where he tried sometimes to forget -himself; his favourite walks, where the very policeman knew and eyed -him. And, coming to the bridge across the Serpentine just then, he -paused and leaned over the edge, watching a bubble rise to the surface. - -“I suppose there _are_ fish in the Serpentine?” he said to a man a few -feet away. - -They talked a moment—the other was evidently a clerk on his way home, -and then the stranger edged off and continued his walk, looking back -once or twice at the sad-faced man who had addressed him. “It’s -ridiculous, that with all our science we can’t live under water as the -fish do,” reflected Leidall, and moved on round the other bank of the -water, where he watched a flight of duck whirl down from the darkening -air and settle with a long, mournful splash beside the bushy island. “Or -that, for all our pride of mechanism in a mechanical age, we cannot -really fly.” But these attempts to escape from self were never very -successful. Another part of him looked on and mocked. He returned ever -to the endless introspection of self-analysis, and in the deepest moment -of it—ran into a big, motionless figure that blocked his way. It was the -Park policeman, the one who had always eyed him. He sheered off suddenly -towards the trees, while the man, recognising him, touched his cap -respectfully. “It’s a pleasant evening, sir; turned quite mild again.” -Leidall mumbled some reply or other, and hurried on to hide himself -among the shadows of the trees. The policeman stood and watched him, -till the darkness swallowed him. “He knows too!” groaned the wretched -man. And every bench was occupied; every face turned to watch him; there -were even figures behind the trees. He dared not go into the street, for -the very taxi-drivers were against him. If he gave an address, he would -not be driven to it; the man would _know_, and take him elsewhere. And -something in his heart, sick with anguish, weary with the endless -battle, suddenly yielded. - -“There _are_ fish in the Serpentine,” he remembered the stranger had -said. “And,” he added to himself, with a wave of delicious comfort, -“they lead secret, hidden lives that no one can disturb.” His mind -cleared surprisingly. In the water he could find peace and rest and -healing. Good Lord! How easy it all was! Yet he had never thought of it -before. He turned sharply to retrace his steps, but in that very second -the clouds descended upon his thought again, his mind darkened, he -hesitated. Could he get out again when he had had enough? Would he rise -to the surface? A battle began over these questions. He ran quickly, -then stood still again to think the matter out. Darkness shrouded him. -He heard the wind rush laughing through the trees. The picture of the -whirring duck flashed back a moment, and he decided that the best way -was by air, and not by water. He would fly into the place of rest, not -sink or merely float; and he remembered the view from his bedroom -window, high over old smoky London town, with a drop of eighty feet on -to the pavements. Yes, that was the best way. He waited a moment, trying -to think it all out clearly, but one moment the fish had it, and the -next the birds. It was really impossible to decide. Was there no one who -could help him, no one in all this enormous town who was sufficiently on -his side to advise him on the point? Some clear-headed, experienced, -kindly man? - -And the face of Dr. Hancock flashed before his vision. He saw the gentle -eyes and sympathetic smile, remembered the soothing voice and the offer -of companionship he had refused. Of course, there was one serious -drawback: Hancock _knew_. But he was far too tactful, too sweet and good -a man to let that influence his judgment, or to betray in any way at all -that he did know. - -Leidall found it in him to decide. Facing the entire hostile world, he -hailed a taxi from the nearest gate upon the street, looked up the -address in a chemist’s telephone book, and reached the door in a -condition of delight and relief. Yes, Dr. Hancock was at home. Leidall -sent his name in. A few minutes later the two men were chatting -pleasantly together, almost like old friends, so keen was the little -man’s intuitive sympathy and tact. Only Hancock, patient listener though -he proved to be, was uncommonly full of words. Leidall explained the -matter very clearly. “Now, what is your decision, Dr. Hancock? Is it to -be the way of the fish or the way of the duck?” And, while Hancock began -his answer with slow, well-chosen words, a new idea, better than either, -leaped with a flash into his listener’s mind. It was an inspiration. For -where could he find a better hiding-place from all his troubles than -Hancock himself? The man was kindly; he surely would not object. Leidall -this time would not hesitate a second. He was tall and broad; Hancock -was small; yet he was sure there would be room. He sprang upon him like -a wild animal. He felt the warm, thin throat yield and bend between his -great hands ... then darkness, peace and rest, a nothingness that surely -was the oblivion he had so long prayed for. He had accomplished his -desire. He had secreted himself forever from persecution—inside the -kindliest little man he had ever met—inside Hancock.... - -He opened his eyes and looked about him into a room he did not know. The -walls were soft and dimly coloured. It was very silent. Cushions were -everywhere. Peaceful it was, and out of the world. Overhead was a -skylight, and one window, opposite the door, was heavily barred. -Delicious! No one could get in. He was sitting in a deep and comfortable -chair. He felt rested and happy. There was a click, and he saw a tiny -window in the door drop down, as though worked by a sliding panel. Then -the door opened noiselessly, and in came a little man with smiling face -and soft brown eyes—Dr. Hancock. - -Leidall’s first feeling was amazement. “Then I didn’t get into him -properly after all! Or I’ve slipped out again, perhaps! The dear, good -fellow!” And he rose to greet him. He put his hand out, and found that -the other came with it in some inexplicable fashion. Movement was -cramped. “Ah, then I’ve had a stroke,” he thought, as Hancock pressed -him, ever so gently, back into the big chair. “Do not get up,” he said -soothingly but with authority; “sit where you are and rest. You must -take it very easy for a bit; like all clever men who have overworked——” - -“I’ll get in the moment he turns,” thought Leidall. “I did it badly -before. It must be through the back of his head, of course, where the -spine runs up into the brain,” and he waited till Hancock should turn. -But Hancock never turned. He kept his face towards him all the time, -while he chatted, moving gradually nearer to the door. On Leidall’s face -was the smile of an innocent child, but there lay a hideous cunning -behind that smile, and the eyes were terrible. - -“Are those bars firm and strong,” asked Leidall, “so that no one can get -in?” He pointed craftily, and the doctor, caught for a second unawares, -turned his head. That instant Leidall was upon him with a roar, then -sank back powerless into the chair, unable to move his arms more than a -few inches in any direction. Hancock stepped up quietly and made him -comfortable again with cushions. - -And something in Leidall’s soul turned round and looked another way. His -mind became clear as daylight for a moment. The effort perhaps had -caused the sudden change from darkness to great light. A memory rushed -over him. “Good God!” he cried. “I am violent. I was going to do you an -injury—you who are so sweet and good to me!” He trembled dreadfully, and -burst into tears. “For the sake of Heaven,” he implored, looking up, -ashamed and keenly penitent, “put me under restraint. Fasten my hands -before I try it again.” He held both hands out willingly, beseechingly, -then looked down, following the direction of the other’s kind brown -eyes. His wrists, he saw, already wore steel handcuffs, and a strait -waistcoat was across his chest and arms and shoulders. - - - - -THE REWARD OF ENTERPRISE - -By WARD MUIR - - -This is how it happened [said my friend Harborough]. - -I’m a novelist, as you know, but if I hadn’t had to take to writing I’d -have been a rolling stone by profession and by inclination. In my more -philosophic moods I perceive that, really, it was sheer luck ... this -occurrence about which you’ve asked me to tell you. I should never have -made a success of any other trade but authorship. I’d have starved; -instead I’m rather well off, as things go. But still—— - -You understand I was by way of being a bit venturesome, as a young man. -I did a certain amount of journalism, from time to time, but my secret -hopes were set on all that is implied in that specious phrase, “seeing -the world.” I wanted to see the world. - -Keeping this object in view I shipped on a tramp steamer, with whose -captain I had struck up an acquaintanceship. Nominally I was the purser, -actually I was the Captain’s guest. Cargo boats such as the S.S. -_Peterhof_ do not employ a purser. - -No need to narrate the history of that voyage nor dwell upon the trivial -particulars of our life on board. Suffice it to say that in mid-Atlantic -our engines had a break-down. The _Peterhof_ came to a standstill. - -If it has ever happened to you during a big voyage you will know that -there is something portentous about the cessation of a steamer’s -machinery in mid-ocean. To be becalmed on a sailing ship may be boring: -to be becalmed—if such an expression can be used—on a steamer is almost -too queer to be boring. Day and night the engines have throbbed until -their throbbing has penetrated into your very marrow, and when the -throbbing abruptly dies you are sensible of a shock. When the _Peterhof_ -halted I ran up on deck as speedily as though we had had a collision. I -saw, all round, nothing but sea, sea, sea, and it was far more amazing -than if I had beheld an island or an iceberg or a raft of shipwrecked -mariners, or any of the other picturesque phenomena which my fertile -fancy had hastened to invent as an explanation for our stoppage. - -The _Peterhof’s_ engines were antiquated, break-downs had occurred -before, and our two engineers, I learnt, would be able to effect a -repair. Twenty-four hours’ labour would set us going again—it turned out -to be only a slightly over-optimistic prophecy—and meanwhile, we were -free to admire, as best we might, the somewhat monotonous beauties of -the Atlantic. - -There was not a breath of wind; the sun blazed from a cloudless sky; as -long as the _Peterhof_ had been in motion we had considered the -temperature fairly cool, but now that her motion was arrested the heat -became very noticeable. The sea was, in a sense, absolutely smooth; but -its smoothness did not imply flatness, any more than the smoothness of a -carpet’s pile implies flatness if the carpet is being shaken. On the -contrary, the _Peterhof_ was rolling upon the undulations of a heavy -ground-swell. The surface of that ground-swell was without a wrinkle, -polished and glossy like lacquer; but its hills and its dales were -gigantically high and deep; far higher and far deeper than I had -realised until the engines relinquished their task of propelling us -athwart them. Now, lying helpless upon the water, we swooped up to a -glazed summit, swooped down to the bottom of a satiny gulf, swooped up -again and down again, in a splendid, even oscillation—and (this was what -seemed so extraordinary to a landsman)—in absolute silence. It was -uncanny. Those fabulous billows never broke. There was not even a hiss -of foam against the side of the steamer. The _Peterhof_ just tobogganned -down one stupendous gradient and up the next as though she had been -sliding on oil. - -The thing fascinated me. I stood by the rail, revelling in this -prodigous sea-saw, and only gradually did it dawn upon me that we were -not really rushing down one slant and up the next, we were only being -lifted up and down vertically. - -This discovery sounds foolish, but I can’t tell you how it excited me. I -got an empty biscuit tin from the steward and threw it into the sea, as -far as I could, and then watched it floating. You’d have said that that -biscuit tin would have been drawn away by the strength of the swell, or -else dashed against the _Peterhof’s_ side; instead it simply sat there -at exactly the spot where it had fallen; and an hour after I had thrown -it into the water it had shifted, perhaps, only six or eight inches -nearer the steamer. - -A project was forming in my mind. I looked at the water. It was a -peculiar, vitreous green, closer under the steamer, was transparent to -the depth of many feet. Beneath my shoe-soles the poop was hot; over -side, the sea looked inexpressibly inviting. And on a sudden I turned to -the drowsing Captain and exclaimed: “I want to bathe.” - -“To _bathe_?” The Captain gazed at me. - -“Why not?” - -The Captain yawned out some lethargic suggestion to the effect that to -bathe would be dangerous because of the depth—as though I’d be more apt -to drown in three miles of water than in three fathoms. - -Seafaring people are odd in that way—I don’t mean in their ignorance of -swimming, though, to be sure, the average sailor is seldom a swimmer. -They’re so—how shall I express it?—so unenterprising. In the midst of -adventure and romance they are stirred by no recognition either of the -adventures or the romantic. - -I was a city-bred youngster, who had never been out of hail of the -homeland before, and I possessed more enterprise in my little finger -than that far-travelled Captain had in the whole of his weather-worn, -hulking lump of a carcass. I wanted to bathe. I wanted to bathe in the -mid-Atlantic. I had learnt to bathe in the public swimming-bath near my -old school, and now I wanted to try a swimming-bath three miles deep and -tilting continuously at an angle of I don’t know how many degrees. The -notion was gorgeous. - -“I can swim,” I said. “You needn’t be afraid.” - -“But the waves’ll sweep you away.” - -“There aren’t any waves. Watch this biscuit tin. The top of the -Atlantic, at this moment, is like a string which is being twanged. The -vibrations are a hundred yards across, or more, and they look as though -they were travelling along the string; I suppose they are travelling -along the string; but a fly sitting on the string doesn’t travel along -with the vibrations, it only travels up and down. If I go in to bathe I -shan’t be swept away.” - -The Captain hadn’t thought of it in that light. He tried to argue—but my -biscuit tin answered his argument. And eventually he allowed me to have -the ladder lowered; I stripped, descended the ladder, and launched -myself into the sea. - -I struck out, to get clear of the ship, then ceased swimming and looked -around me. The sea was coldish, but not unendurable—and anyhow I was too -much in love with my situation to bother about that. Behind me the -_Peterhof_ towered, like a cliff; I had never realised, before, how big -a five-thousand-ton vessel looks from the water. At her rail I could see -a cluster of the crew, watching me; the Captain on the poop. From -somewhere in the interior of the ship came the sound of hammering—the -engineers at work—and I noticed that this sound reached me more clearly -now than when I was on board. - -But if the _Peterhof_ appeared strange, from the water, how much -stranger was the view in the opposite direction! Or rather, the absence -of view! - -The ground-swell had looked formidable when I was on the _Peterhof’s_ -deck; here its aspect was terrific. The crystalline slope in which I was -cradled seemed to reach the sky; yet, without having climbed it, I -immediately found myself, instead of looking up the slope, looking down -it—down an oblique abyss of gleaming profundity. I seemed to fall and -fall and fall; nevertheless, there was no spasm of nausea; although I -was falling I was supported, sensuously, in my fall ... and I never -reached the finish of the fall; it merged, imperceptibly, into an -ascent; and a moment later I was surveying a fresh trough of glassiness, -or else gazing audaciously downward, downward on to the deck of the -_Peterhof_. - -It was overwhelming. Never in all my life have I attained to a rapture -comparable with that bathe in mid-Atlantic. I knew, even at the time, -that it would be unforgettable. I had aspired to be able to say that I -had swum in water three miles deep ... oh, never mind what vain boast I -had promised myself. Boasting was forgotten. I was experiencing. I was -surrendered to an ecstasy, an enchantment, a glee, beyond expression -grandiose and delicious. I lolled in the pellucid water, not troubling -to swim. I let myself go, in those dizzy soarings and sinkings; I -abandoned myself to this vast and beautiful force; I felt at once -infinitely little and infinitely great. - -The whole adventure was half terrifying and half ... well, comfortable. -Perched on the crown of one of those flawless ridges I felt, as I -toppled over, that I must either be smashed to pieces at the end of the -plunge or engulfed in some horrid undertow. But I knew that nothing of -the sort would happen. Quietly I paddled with my arms and feet; almost -contemptuously I gave myself to the puissant and colossal rhythm which -swayed me as high as a cathedral at every swing and then gently rocked -me down as deep as a valley. I tell you, the sensation was sublime ... -and I hadn’t even got my hair wet! - -I remembered, in the middle of my bliss, this perfectly incongruous fact -that I hadn’t got my hair wet, and I prepared to “duck.” But at that -moment I heard a shout from the deck of the _Peterhof_. - -I turned in the water, and saw that the Captain was gesticulating to me, -but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The crew were shouting also, and -one of them had got a coil of rope over his arm and seemed to be making -ready to throw it. What did they mean? - -Stupidly, in the tingling ardour and gusto of my enjoyment, I didn’t -make out, for a minute, what they were driving at; it occurred to me -that they had taken it into their heads that because I wasn’t swimming I -had got cramp. I signalled cheerily to them, to reassure them; but they -did not cease shouting ... and then, as I turned again, a little, in the -water, I knew.... - -Near the skyline rim of the superb mountain-range upon which I was -commencing to rise I saw, shadowy in the translucent green, an -unmistakable shape—the shape of a great fish: a shark. Its fin cut the -surface like a knife. For one instant I stared, and in that instant I -observed, with a vivid clearness, all manner of minute details—the -burnished sheen on the water, the glistening tautness of its lofty -skyline, the sapphire blue of the sky itself, and, most lucidly of all, -the silhouette of the shark. Every movement of the shark was now plain -to me; and it was moving, there was no doubt of it: a trail of bubbles -streamed from its flank and a tiny streak of froth fluttered behind the -fin. The shark was not passive, in the element, as I was; it was monarch -of the waves, it could drive through them with the precision of a -torpedo. I had invaded a realm which I had no business to invade ... and -its guardian was come to punish me. - -An astonishingly coherent train of reflections such as these whirled -round my brain. They must have occupied a fraction of a second. I know -that, at all events, I struck out for the _Peterhof_ without any -apparent pause. My arms and legs worked frantically; I swum as I had -never swum before. I hurled myself through the water. - -Fortunately I had gone only a very short distance from the foot of the -steamer’s ladder. It seemed remote enough, though, I can tell you! My -eyes were bursting out of their sockets, but I could dimly see the -Captain leaning on the rail and shouting, and some of the men running -down the ladder to receive me. Then the rope was flung. It splashed -across me. I grasped it. I dug my nails into it. I clung to it with a -grip so fierce that I felt as though I was crushing it. Simultaneously -the men at the other end of the rope began pulling, and I was jerked -through the water in a lather of spray which swirled round my shoulders. -My arms and head were above the water, I was being dragged so fast up -the steamer’s side. I could still see the Captain, vaguely, confusedly. -His mouth was open, his hands were waving. But I wasn’t interested in -him, I was only interested in what was pursuing behind me. Gad! That was -an awful moment. I dream of it, sometimes, even now: the disgusting, -obscene terror of that dash for safety ... and I wake sweating with the -horror of it. - - * * * * * - -Harborough paused. - -“And how did your adventure end?” I asked. - -“I don’t know. I lost consciousness. But I kept tight on to the rope. -They hauled me on board ... they told me afterwards that I hadn’t even -got my hair wet ... but ...” he hesitated. - -“I’d had my experience—a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Dash it!” he -laughed. “It was almost worth it, I swear ... and I’m making money, now, -as a novelist, whereas if I’d continued my life of rolling stone I’d -certainly have arrived in prison or the poorhouse. Yes, I suppose that -every disaster has its compensations. - -“But I confess I didn’t think so when I awoke on board the _Peterhof_—we -were plug-plugging onwards again by that time—and found that I’d got -only one leg.” - - - - -GREAR’S DAM - -By MORLEY ROBERTS - - -There was dust everywhere; it was a red-hot world of dust. It lay upon -the roads where the labouring wheel tracks marked them out; but the -whole long plain was dust as well. Neither grass nor any green thing -showed, and dead, dry salt-bush, eaten by the sheep till it looked like -broken peasticks, was dust colour to the dancing horizon of that world -of thirst. For seven months and a week, by Wilson’s almanac, there had -been no rain, and what dew had fallen the hot air drank when the fierce -sun rose. And now not even the little fenced garden at Warribah showed -any sign of verdure. Water was precious, and each day the north wind -drank the water-holes drier and drier yet. - -But, though the world of desolate Warribah was brown, in the roots of -grass and the mere sticks of salt-bush was sufficient nourishment to -keep life in the sheep who moved across the burnt paddocks of the -station; what they needed, and what they began to suffer for was water, -and the cloudless sky, luminous and terrible, bent over their world and -breathed fire upon them. The wind out of the Austral tropics was as -fierce as a blowpipe flame, or so it seemed. Hope and prosperity melted -under it, and the home at Warribah dissolved. - -“I shall go mad,” said Wilson. And having said it, he sent his wife away -to the south. He could not keep a cheerful face before her; it was -easier to lie upon paper, easier to drift into silence that was not -disturbed by her tears. He was a lonely man again, as lonely as when he -had first fought with the bush, and conquered a space for himself where -no water ran. - -And now the conquered territory that he had hoped to keep for the uses -of civilisation called in the sun and the north wind, and there was a -great fight in progress between man and nature. As he walked over what -he had won, or as he galloped, the caked and cracked earth fell into -powder, and rose choking and impalpable, as fine as flour. The gaunt, -spare box trees of the plains were powdered with its red-white film; -their dry verdure was obscured. The dust was mud upon his lips, mud upon -his cheeks as he sweated ice, to think the day was coming when there -could be no hope for him and no help. - -“How long now?” he asked himself. - -And all about the plains rose columns of dust as the uneasy, fretful -sheep, to whom his men doled water, moved up the wind seeking more. - -“After ten years—this,” said Wilson, and he laughed. But those who heard -him laugh shivered, and contracted their brows. For he was a hard -worker, and had slaved for this—for bankruptcy, a sky of brass. - -“The boss is crazy,” said the men at the hut. - -An immense, intolerable sense of pity for the sheep possessed him. He -had no children, and the land he held had been as a child to him. Now -the plains he had delighted in were become ingrate. They refused him -help. The sheep were his children and his delight. He knew thousands of -them by sight, for he had the shepherd’s eye. There was a character -about the Warribah sheep that he had bestowed by his care and by his -choice. He had fenced them in against straying; had chased the cowardly -dingo and had slain him; he had rejoiced in the grass and the whitening -cotton-bush, and the succulence of thick-fleshed salt-bush. How often he -had ridden out and watched the sheep graze; it was a happy world when -the rains in their due season ceased, and the time for shearing came. It -was a riotous pleasure to hear the click of the shears. How the white -inner fleece gleamed and fell over, and parted and showed its woven -beauty! The movements of the shearers, and the sound of them, and the -sound of the pent or loosened sheep wove itself into a kind of fabric; -in the loom of time and the due sweet season pleasure grew, and success, -and the joy of well-doing. - -And now there was death in the air and in the north wind. And behind it -ruin. There his ten thousand children would perish off the face of the -inexorable earth and be no more than white bones lying heaped against a -northern fence where no water was. He laughed a thin, crackling laugh, -and walked to and fro in front of his lonely house. - -“The boss is crazy,” his men had said. Now in the hot and idle noon they -sat in the southward shadow of the crackling hut and watched him. The -old cook, a blear-eyed outcast thrown up by the seas upon the coast of -Australia, broke suddenly into a drivelling yarn. - -“I knew it worse nor this—hell’s flames never beat it, on the Bogan that -year——” - -He mumbled on. - -“So they died, and the horses, too. Oh, it was cruel, cruel. And Webber -cut his throat from ear to ear, cut his crazy ’ead ’arf off.” - -“What of your paddock, Jim?” asked Hill, the old hand of Warribah. The -young boundary rider spat drily. - -“The jumbucks is suckin’ mud. The water stinks of yolk. You can smell it -a mile off. Ter-morrer I’ll have to fetch ’em in.” - -The black and red ants ran riot in the hut and outside of it. The insect -world flourished and abounded. But for all their bronze there was a -pallid look about the men. Nature was no friend of theirs; they looked -out on fire and blinding light. - -“I never knowed it worse.” - -But old Blear Eyes had. - -“So _he_ blew his brains out.” - -“Oh, dry up,” said Hill, but the cook murmured of ancient disasters on -the Darling and the Macquarie. - -“Did you die of thirst, you old croaker, and jump up to choke us?” - -And still Wilson wandered to and fro in the sunlight, though the sky was -inexorable. - -“He’ll be shakin’ his fist at it yet,” said the cook, “and when a man -does that he never comes to no good. It’s all up with them as shakes a -fist at ’eaven. I’ve seen it myself. Now it was in ’79 that Jones of -Quandong Flats went mad. He shook ’is fist at the sky. I seen him, and -the next morning ’e was ravin’ ’orrid, as though the ’orrors of drink -was on ’im. And well I knowed ’em then.” - -The boss came towards them through the hot sand, and he leant in the -shade against the pole on which the men’s saddles hung. The men looked -downcast and half-ashamed. Sydney Jim lost all his flashness and moved -uneasily. And the old cook shambled into his kitchen and fell to work -upon his bread. - -“There’s little water in the Ten-Mile Tank, Jim?” - -“They was suckin’ mud this morning, sir,” said Jim. - -Wilson tugged at his grizzled beard and pulled his sunburnt hat over his -eyes. - -“We should have put down wells,” said Hill. - -Wilson broke into sudden blasphemy, and checked it with a kind of gasp, -as though he felt that madness lay just beyond the limits of his -self-control. - -“So we should,” he said; “so we should.” - -And he walked away. - -“You took that cursin’ very quiet,” said Jim. And there was something in -Hill’s eye that made him flinch. - -“Oh, well,” he said apologetically, and Hill glared at him. The heat was -in more than one. - -“My son,” said Hill, “I’ve half a mind——” - -And then he rose and followed Wilson. He caught him up and talked hard -till Wilson shook his head and went inside and slammed the door. - -“He should make it up with Grear, and if Grear let him down on to the -river he might save some.” - -For Warribah was in the back-blocks, and Grear held all the river -frontage for twenty miles. - -“But they hate each other, and Wilson ain’t the man to crawl,” said -Hill. “He’s a good sort. I’ll go myself.” - -He went back to the hut and, taking his saddle and bridle, walked to the -horse paddock, which seemed as barren as a stockyard. He caught his -horse, that was standing at the gate and looking wistfully towards the -stable as if he knew that good feed was there. - -“Come,” said Hill, and he rode south through the pine scrub towards -Grear’s. He came to the station as the sun went down, and when he asked -for the boss Grear came out. - -“Oh you!” he said roughly. “And what d’ye want?” - -He was a long, thin man with a cold eye and thin lips, and as he looked -at him Hill felt that it was a foolish errand he had come on. The man -was worse than he had imagined. It seemed that Wilson was right. To ask -Grear for anything was to invite insult. And though Hill had come twenty -miles to ask he turned away. - -“I haven’t seen you for nigh on a year,” said he, “and now I’ve seen -you, why, I shan’t weep if I never see you again.” - -He got upon his horse solemnly and turned away, leaving Grear with an -open mouth. - -“I was a fool to come,” said Hill, as he ploughed his way among the -sandhills. “He used to reckon that all the back-blocks was his, and -Wilson took ’em up. Grear don’t forgive.” - -The night had come upon the land, but there was no remission of the hot -north wind. The heated earth radiated heat still, while in the clear -obscure of the heavens the stars glittered like sharp points of steel. -They stabbed Hill’s very heart as he rode and looked into the rainless -depths of heaven. For the sky was no overarching dome at that season. It -was an awful emptiness without form; it was space itself, unmitigated -and terrible, and heaven’s lamps were near and far and farther still, -while black, starless spaces showed like unfathomable patches in a -silent sea. - -“Good God!” said Hill, and fear got hold of him suddenly. He roused his -horse to a canter for the sake of the noise of the motion. The sky -appalled him, and a peculiar sense of reversion took him. He was hung -over depths, and seemed to cling to the suspended earth. - -“I’m crazy myself,” said Hill, with a quiver in his voice. And his very -voice broke the silence like a pistol shot. It made him start until he -heard a sheep’s faint baa in the distance. And then a mopoke called its -mate in the trees by an old dry creek. Hill pulled up. - -“But it ain’t a creek after all,” he said to himself. “It’s a Billabong, -but it’s twenty years since water came out of the Lachlan so far as -Warribah, and Grear put a dam there fifteen years ago. Ah! if the river -only rose up, and came down roarin’. But it won’t; it won’t.” - -As he dreamed of the river, now like a low water-hole with never a -current in it, Wilson, at home, lay in an uneasy sleep. He, too, -dreamed, and dreamed of rain, and he woke himself shouting, “Rain!” and -in his confusion called “Mary” to his wife five hundred miles away. - -“Oh God! I dreamt it again,” he said. “I dreamed of rain in our old -place east, and the river came down with thunder and floods, and the -land grew green in an hour—green, green!” - -He fell asleep again, and when he woke at dawn he was oddly cheerful. -Perhaps the rest from anxiety in that happy dream had taken part of the -strain from his weary mind. - -“I do feel as if it had rained somewhere,” he said; “and if the weather -only breaks anywhere we may have it here.” - -“Don’t you think it cooler?” he said to Hill next morning. But the sky -was brass and the sun white hot. - -That evening a man riding through to Conoble from Condobolin told him -that he had heard it had rained east of Forbes. And another man who -camped at the Ten-Mile Clump said he knew there had been a great -thunderstorm to the east. - -“I dreamed it, so I did!” cried Wilson; “and the Lachlan’s coming down.” - -His jaw fell even as he spoke. What use was the Lachlan to him out in -the beyond, when Grear’s lay between? He had no river frontage. Grear -had it all. - -In such a country, in spite of its apparent desolation, news travels -fast. They heard that the Lachlan, so quiet at Condobolin, was running -hard at Forbes. It was out in the flats, where the felled trees marked -the old mining camp. There had been a storm, a great cloudburst, in its -head waters, and the river grew alive. Wilson saddled up and rode thirty -miles to see it, and came to the gum-lined ditch just in time to hear -the stream awake. It stirred before his eyes, it became turbid, grew -grey, bubbled, moved and ran, with sticks and leaves and branches on its -full tide. - -And still the sky overhead was fire, and the sun a flame. Wilson cursed -it, and prayed to the beautiful grey water. Why should not rain come -there? And soon. But as he rode back he came to sheep of his that stood -against a fence, and pressed on it, as though water was beyond it. Pity -stirred him; he drove them through a gate, and let them suck his last -low tank. - -That night Wilson came to the men’s hut under its pines in the sand -dune, and called to Hill. - -“Hill, I want to speak to you,” he said, and presently his man came out -into the night. The stars were brilliant. Jupiter was like a little -moon, and cast faint shadows. - -“There’ll be no rain here,” said Wilson. “Were you sleeping? I can’t -sleep! Do you hear?” - -He waved his hand around the barren horizon. - -“I hear,” said Hill. - -He heard the sheep. - -“You say that old Billabong once came down to Warribah?” asked Wilson. - -Hill nodded. - -“So they say. But Grear’s dam would stop it.” - -“He’s no right to have it there,” said Wilson, savagely. “Look, Hill, I -can’t sleep. I’ll ride out to the dam.” - -“I’ll come with you,” said Hill. - -“You’re a good sort, Jack,” cried the boss. And they rode together -through the wonderful night, that was so terrible to them, with its hot, -dry air out of the oven of the north. - -When they came at last to the long, low dam they tied their horses to -saplings, and sat down. Wilson spoke after a quarter of an hour’s -silence. - -“It would be hard to lose it after these years,” he said. “And here’s -Grear’s dam with a fence atop of it. He’s a hard one, Jack!” - -“Ay,” said Hill, “he’s hard.” - -And Wilson, who had not really slept for days, lay down upon the earth -and dozed, while the star shadows of the gaunt thin boxes moved a foot. -In the hollow of the Billabong some dry reeds, like a cane-brake, -rustled faintly in the air. The leaves of the trees crackled, and -underneath these sharper sounds was the hum of the insect world. Far -away, on every side, the sheep called uneasily for water. What had -seemed silence grew into a very chorus, organic with the earth. The -horses champed their bits and pawed the dusty soil; and once one -whinnied, and was answered by a far-off call from Grear’s. - -“I wonder what the river’s like,” thought Hill. He pulled out his pipe -and lighted it. The flare of the match extinguished the starlight for a -moment, and then the darkness melted once more, and he saw each separate -tree, each leaf, each reed. - -“I wonder.” - -For if the river was in high flood, and over the banks, the Billabong -must be full at Grear’s. And suddenly he heard a sound that he knew -well. He laid his hand upon Wilson’s shoulder. - -“D’ye hear it, sir? What is it?” - -But both knew. Grear’s sheep were moving from east and west towards -water. - -“The blackfellows were right,” said Wilson. “The Billabong is coming -down.” - -The horses trampled uneasily, and seemed aware of a change. Perhaps they -too smelt the grey flood as it crawled. And all the air seemed full of -whispers, loud and louder yet. For even the thinned bush is alive, and -holds carnival at midnight and beyond it. A snake crawled by them on the -dam, and suddenly being aware of nigh enemies, it slipped away hastily, -and hid in the hollow trunk of a fallen dwarf box. The sheep on Warribah -grew more uneasy; he heard a distant baa, and then a nearer cry, and a -plaintive chorus came down the dry, hot wind. - -“I can’t listen to ’em,” said Wilson. “It makes me mad.” - -He rested his head upon his knees, and kept his hands to his ears. But -suddenly he rose up. - -“If the water comes we’ll cut the dam, Hill.” - -“I would,” said Hill. - -“Go back and fetch Jim, and bring shovels,” said Wilson. “I’ll cut it. -If the water comes, I’ve a right to it.” - -And Hill rode homeward fast. And as he rode the boss sat still upon the -dam, and looked upon the faintly outlined hollow of the ancient -waterway. And again he dozed, and did not see that round the far bend of -the hollow came a sneaking, quiet band of grey water, like a crawling -snake. But as he slept the night chorus increased, and away to the south -the full sheep baa’ed with content. The Warribah sheep heard and knew, -and moved south through the night: and suddenly ten thousand broke into -a gallop, and stayed in a heap against the fence that topped the dam. -Their voices agonised; they woke Wilson suddenly, and he reached out his -hand and touched water. - -And he heard horses galloping. This was Hill returning. - -“Thank God!” said Wilson, and he prayed to Heaven with sudden -thankfulness. - -But then he started, for the horses came from the south. They came from -Grear’s, and he knew what that meant. - -“I’ll do it if I have to kill him,” said Wilson. For behind him the -painful chorus of the sheep was deafening. He saw them packed against -the bulging wires. His heart bled for them, his children. - -And then three horses burst through the thin bush. - -“Oh, we’re in time,” said Grear. “I thought as much, but we’re in time. -Who’s that?” - -“Wilson of Warribah,” said Wilson. “Grear, you will let the water -through.” - -And Grear laughed. - -“To you that sneaked in and took up my back-lots? Oh, it’s likely, -likely!” - -“But the sheep are dying, Grear.” - -“Mine ain’t,” said Grear. “Get over the fence and off my land. I’ll not -have you here.” - -And Wilson burst into a passionate appeal that was almost a scream. - -“Look here, man, if you are a man. I’ll give you ten per cent of ’em to -cut the dam. They’re dying. Oh, my God! hear ’em, Grear; hear ’em! And -I’ve bred ’em. I watched ’em grow. Oh, Grear, I’ll give you half!” - -And Grear swore horribly. - -“I’ll see them die, and see you get out. I don’t want you here.” - -And now in the noise the sheep made it was difficult to hear a man -speak. But the water grew up silently, and spread out, filling the -hollow—a grateful and splendid sheet. - -“’Tain’t all yours,” screamed Wilson. “The dam’s not legal. You’ve no -right to rob me and my sheep.” - -“Then go to law, you dog, and have it proved,” said Grear. And as he -spoke Hill came galloping, and with him Jim and two other men. And they -carried shovels. - -“Look,” said Wilson. “We’re five to you three, you and your men. I mean -to have the water.” - -“Never!” cried Grear, and getting off his horse he walked up the dam to -where Wilson stood. - -“Get over the fence,” he said. - -And Wilson leant against the fence and the sheep behind him. He dabbled -with his hand in their wool. Their hot breath fanned him. - -“Don’t, Grear, don’t,” he pleaded. “What would you think if I did the -same to you?” - -“You can’t,” said Grear, and he laughed. “I’ve the river at my back.” - -And Hill with a spade in his hand pressed through the sheep, until he -came to Wilson. He touched the boss’s shoulder, and Wilson calmed as he -took the spade. - -“You don’t mean that they’re to die, Grear, do you?” he asked, with a -catch in his voice. - -“What’s that to me?” - -“It’s much to me,” said Wilson. “Oh, Grear, I’d rather be hanged than -let it be.” - -“Would you? Then be hanged, you rat!” said Grear. - -And Wilson lifted the spade, and split Grear’s head with it, and the man -fell back into the water, and dyed it with his blood. But he was dead -before he touched the silver grey stream that had slain him. - -And Wilson fell to work digging. - -“Good God!” said Hill, and the dead squatter’s men cried out. - -“Dig, dig,” said Wilson. “Dig! Grear’s got his water. I’ll have mine.” - -When the sun rose his sheep were content. - -“Now we’ll see what the law says,” cried Wilson. And he rode south to -find the law. - - - - -THE KING OF MALEKA - -By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE - - - - - 1 - - - - -Connart had started in life with a fine, open, believing disposition, -and with that disposition for his chief asset he had entered the world -of business. At thirty he had lost nearly everything but his heart, yet -it was stolen from him, also, by one Mary Bateman of Boston, a -quiet-looking little woman, endowed with common sense, a few thousand -dollars and a taste for travel. It was this taste, combined with a -slight weakness of the lungs, that induced Connart to go into the -Pacific trade, also a legacy, from an English relation, amounting to -some two thousand pounds odd, which enabled him to make the new start in -business without calling on his wife’s capital. - -Dobree of San Francisco gave him the pitch. Connart had the qualities of -his defects. Men robbed him, but they liked him. Men are queer things. -Dobree, in business, was a very tough person indeed, quite without any -finer feelings, and never giving a cent or a chance away, yet, taking a -liking to Connart, he gave him a house, a go-down, and the chance of -success on this Island, by name of Maleka, for nothing. - -“I had a station there up to six months ago,” said Dobree, “but I’m -getting rid of my copra interests. You can have the house, charter a -schooner and fill up with trade and go down there, it’s a good climate -and will suit your wife. You won’t make a fortune, but you won’t do -badly if you stick to your guns and don’t let the Kanakas get the -weather gauge on you. There’s only one man there, Seedbaum is his name, -he’s a tough customer by all accounts, but there’s copra enough for -two—I know a schooner you can have, the _Golden Gleam_; she’s owned by -old Tom Bowlby. I’ve got a fellow at a station on Tomasu, that’s a -hundred and fifty miles west of Maleka. There’s a cargo waiting shipment -there. Bowlby can drop you and your stuff at Maleka, then pick up my -cargo at the other place. You won’t have your copra ready for some -months and you can make arrangements with him to come back for it. You -might make arrangements to work in future with Bowlby, he’s a straight -man. You might work with him as partner.” - -It was easy to be seen that Dobree was not only giving things away, but -going out of his course to make things smooth. Connart felt glowingly -thankful. - -“It’s more than good of you,” said he, “but it seems to me you will lose -over this, for a location like that is worth money.” - -“So are cigars,” said Dobree, “but if I give a box of cigars to a friend -he doesn’t complain that the gift is worth money. D——n money,” continued -this money-grubber, “it’s worth nothing but the fun of making it—well, -will you take your cigars, or shall I give the box to someone else?” - -Connart said no more. In three weeks’ time the _Golden Gleam_, which was -lying at the wharves, had taken her cargo of all the multitudinous -things that go by the name of “trade,” and one bright morning, tacking -against the wind from the sea, she left the Golden Gate behind her. - -Mrs. Connart stood on deck, watching bald Tamalpais across the blue, -scudding sea of the wake. - -When you go to the Pacific Islands you die to all the things you have -known, but you are at least sure that you are going to heaven—if you -avoid the low islands. - -Mrs. Connart knew the first fact. Down below in her cabin she carried -with her the relics of the life she would no longer lead, down to a -well-worn riding habit and a whip that would most likely never touch -horse again, but she was not despondent, quite the reverse. - -You may be sea-sick in a Pacific schooner, bucking against the swell and -bending to the north-west trades, you may be mutinous, or angry, or -tipsy, but despondency, that low fever of cities and civilisation, has -no place out there. - -“You ain’t feelin’ the sea, ma’am?” said Captain Bowlby, ranging up -alongside of her. - -“No,” said she, “I’m a good sailor.” - -“I bet you are,” said the captain. - -Bowlby had a keen eye for ships and women. He had taken a liking to Mrs. -Connart at first sight. She had a steady eye and sure smile that pleased -him, and some days later, alone with Ambrose the mate, he voiced his -opinions. - -“Looks like a mouse, don’t she? Well, there ain’t no mouse about her -barring her look. She’s one of them quiet sorts that’d back-chat a -congressman if she was put to it, or take a lion by the tail if it was -makin’ for one of her kids. I bet she’s rudder and compass both to -Connart. She and he fit as if they was welded. Did you ever take notice -that there’s chaps you meet that’re only half men till they get a woman -that fits them clapped on to them? If she don’t fit they go under the -first beam sea they meet; if she do, weather won’t hurt them.” - -Ambrose concurred. He was a concurring individual, with few opinions of -his own on any matters outside his trade. - -“I reckon you’re right,” said he, “though I don’t know much about -women—I never had the time,” he finished, apologetically. - - - - - 2 - - - - -They raised Maleka at six o’clock one brilliant morning, and by nine it -had developed before them, mountainous and green, showing, through the -glasses, the blowing foliage, torrent traces and the foam on the barrier -reef. - -To Connart and his wife there seemed something miraculous in the -unfolding of this island from the wastes of the blue and desolate sea. -They had pictured this new home often in their minds, but they had -pictured nothing like this. It had been waiting for them all their -lives, and it seemed to them now that the souls of all the pleasant -places they had ever seen or dreamed of were waiting to greet them on -that summer-girdled reef. - -As they passed the break and entered the lagoon the true island beach of -blinding white sand showed its curve lipped by the emerald waters, and -through the foliage came glimpses of the white houses of the little -town. - -“Look,” said Mrs. Connart, wide-eyed and drawing deep breaths as if to -inhale the strangeness and beauty of the scene before her, “there are -people on the beach, natives, and look at the canoes.” - -“There’s a boat pushing off,” said Connart, “and a big fellow in a -striped suit in her.” - -“That’s Seedbaum,” said Captain Bowlby; “wonder what he wants, comin’ to -inspect—gin, likely.” - -The anchor fell, waking the echoes of the woods, and the _Golden Gleam_, -swinging to the tide that was just beginning to steal out of the lagoon, -lay with her nose pointing to the beach whilst the boat came alongside, -and the man in the striped suit scrambled on board. - -He was a big man, with bulging eyes, a shaved head, and feet encased in -worn-out tennis shoes. The suit seemed made of flannelette. - -Mrs. Connart at first sight took a profound dislike to this individual. - -Seedbaum—for Seedbaum it was—saluted Bowlby, gave him good-day, cast his -eye at the strangers and opened up. - -“I knew you before you made the anchorage,” said he, “dropped in for -water, I suppose.” - -“No, I’ve water enough till I fetch Tomasu,” replied Bowlby, “I’ve -brought some trade.” - -“Trade,” said Seedbaum, offering a cigar. “Well, I don’t mind taking -some prints and knives off you at a reasonable price. I’m full up with -canned goods and tobacco, still—at a reasonable figure——” - -“The trade’s not mine,” said Bowlby, lighting the cigar. “It belongs to -the new trader—that gentleman there, Mr. Connart’s his name, let me make -you known. Mr. Connart, this is Mr. Seedbaum.” - -“Glad to make your acquaintance,” said Connart. - -Seedbaum, fingering an unlit cigar, stared at Connart. - -“Well, this gets me,” said he. “Why, Dobree cleared his last man out for -good, there’s not business enough in this island for two—that’s -flat—what’d he want sending you for?” - -“He didn’t send me,” replied Connart. - -“Then,” said Seedbaum, “what brought you here, anyway?” - -“I think,” said Mrs. Connart, “this ship brought us here—and, excuse -me—do you own this island?” - -Seedbaum stared at her, then his glance fell before that quiet, -unwavering gaze, and he turned to Bowlby. - -“Well,” said he, “it’s none of my affair if the whole continent of the -States comes here to find copra—if it’s to be found—but it seems to me -this is a pretty dry ship.” - -“Come down below,” said Bowlby. - -They went below and the pop of a beer-bottle cork followed upon their -descent. - -“Oh, what a creature!” said Mrs. Connart. “George, why is it that -humanity alone produces things like that?” - -“I don’t know,” said Connart, “but I wish humanity had not produced it -here.” - -Seedbaum came on deck again mollified by beer. Despite the set-down he -had received he nodded to the new-comers as he went over the side, and -as they watched him being rowed ashore, Bowlby, leaning on the rail, -spat into the water and spoke. - -“I didn’t much trouble tellin’ you of that chap on the way out,” said -Bowlby. “There’s no use in meetin’ troubles half way, and there’s not an -island in the hull Pacific you won’t find trouble of some sort in. If -you go in for Pacific tradin’ there’s two things you have to face, -cockroaches and men. I’ve kept the old Gleam pretty free of ‘roaches by -fumigatin’, but you can’t fumigate islands. If you could I reckon you’d -see more rats with hands and feet takin’ to the water than’s ever been -seen since the Ark discharged cargo. Seedbaum’d be one of them, but you -have his measure now and you’ll know enough to go careful with him. -Wiart, the last man that was here, got on all right with him. You see, -they were pretty much of a pair, and it’s my belief they were hand in -glove, as you might say, but I reckon you won’t have much use for a -glove like that. Well, I’ll get you ashore now to see your house and -I’ll help to fix it up for you. We’ll begin gettin’ the cargo ashore -to-morrow.” - -He ordered a boat to be lowered and they rowed ashore. - -Never, not even in dreamland, had Mrs. Connart experienced anything so -strange as that stepping on shore from the bow of the boat run high and -dry on the shelving beach, never anything like the touch of land after -the long, long weeks of seafaring, and the sights, the sounds, the -perfumes all new, belonging to a new life to be lived in a new world. - -The white houses set in a little garden at the far end of the village -pleased her as much as the place. Her house is almost as much as her -husband to a woman, for, to a woman a house implies so much more than to -a man. There are good houses and bad houses, crazy houses exhibiting the -folly of their builders in stucco turrets or mad chimney pots, and -stupid houses without character or proper sculleries and sinks. The -house at Maleka, though small and possessing few rooms, was cheerful and -had a pleasant personality of its own, but it did not possess a stick of -furniture. Mrs. Connart with the prescience of a woman and assisted by -the advice of Bowlby, had brought with them from San Francisco articles -of furniture not to be obtained in the islands, unless at a ruinous -cost. Mats, cane chairs and hammocks could be obtained from the natives. -All the same, there had been furniture in the house and it was gone. -Dobree had given them a list of things and amongst them was an article -on which Mrs. Connart had, woman-like, set her heart. “One red cedar -chest, four foot six by three foot,” was its specification. - -“But who can have taken them?” said she, as they stood in the empty -front room, after a tour of inspection. “There was crockery ware, -besides, and oh, ever so many things, and Mr. Dobree was so kind. He -would not take a penny for them. You remember, George, he said: ‘When I -give a friend a box of cigars I don’t take the bands off them, whatever -is there you can have’—and now there’s nothing!” - -“Maybe the Kanakas have taken them,” said Bowlby. - -“Or Seedbaum,” said Connart. - -“As like as not,” replied the captain. “He seems to look on the blessed -place as his. He told me down in the cabin he reckoned he was king of -Maleka, and that all the Kanakas jumped to his orders as if he was king. -He’s got a clutch on the place, there’s no denying that, and he manages -to keep missionaries away somehow or ’nother. I’m afraid you’re going to -have trouble with that chap.” - -“I’m not afraid of him,” said Connart. “I’ve got a revolver and can use -it if worst comes to the worst.” - -“Oh, it’s not revolvers I’m thinkin’ of,” said the captain, “it’s -trickery; he’d trick the devil out of his hoofs and then make gelatine -of them, would Seedbaum; have no trade dealin’s with him; take my -advice, just stick to the Kanakas.” - -“Let’s go and ask him, right now, if he knows where the things have gone -to,” said Mrs. Connart. - -“Well, that’s not a bad idea,” said Bowlby. “He’s sure to lie; anyhow, -it’ll clear matters.” - -Seedbaum’s house was a substantially built coral-lime-washed building, -with a broad verandah in which hung a cage containing a parrot, the -garden was neat and well-tended, and the whole place had an air of quiet -prosperity, neatness and order, as though the better part of the owner’s -character were here exhibited for the general view. - -Seedbaum was seated on the verandah, reading a San Francisco paper -obtained from Bowlby. - -Seeing them approach he rose to greet them. - -“I’ve come to ask you about the furniture in our house,” said Connart. -“There were quite a lot of things left by the last man, and I have a -list of them, but everything has gone, been taken away—do you know -anything of the matter?” - -“I don’t know anything of what you call furniture,” said the other. -“Wiart sold me his sticks when he left for fifty dollars, and a bad -bargain it was.” - -“He sold you them?” - -“Yes.” - -“But they belonged to Mr. Dobree.” - -“Oh, did they; well, Dobree will have to dispute that with Wiart. Wiart -said they were his.” - -“Have you his receipt?” - -“Lord, no, there was no receipt in the matter. I handed him over the -dollars and he handed me over the rubbish. It was a favour to him.” - -“Was there a cedar-wood chest?” asked Mrs. Connart. - -“There was. It’s in my house now, there; you can see it through the -door.” - -Through the open door which gave a view of the front room Mrs. Connart -saw the object of her desire. It was a beauty, solid, moth-defying, with -brass corners and brass handles. It was hers by all right, and Seedbaum -had tricked her out of it. She spoke: - -“That chest is mine,” said she. “Mr. Dobree gave it to me, it was his -property, and Mr. Wiart had no right to sell it.” - -“Well,” said Seedbaum, “he sold it, and if there’s any trouble over it -it will be between Dobree and Wiart, and Wiart was going to Japan, so he -said when he left here, so Dobree had better go to Japan and have it out -with him.” - -Mrs. Connart turned. - -“Come,” said she to the others, “there is no use talking any more to -this person. I will write to Mr. Dobree.” - -They turned away and Seedbaum sat down again to read his newspaper. - -“That’s what I said,” spoke Bowlby. “Monkey tricks; you see how he’s -placed; Wiart’s gone Lord knows where, and Pacific Coast law don’t run -here. The way for you to do is to lay low and fetch him in the eye -unexpected, somehow, though if you take my advice you’ll give him a wide -offing. There’s no use in fightin’ with alligators; better leave them -be. Hullo, what’s that?” - -They turned. - -Seedbaum had come out of the verandah. - -A passing native had drawn his ire for some reason or another, and the -redoubtable Seedbaum was storming at him. Then he kicked the native, and -the latter, a big, powerful man, turned and ran. - -“The coward!” said Mrs. Connart. - -“I expect that chap ain’t a coward,” said Bowlby. “He’s just ’feared of -Seedbaum. I reckon there’re some curious things in nature. I’ve seen a -whole ship’s company livin’ in terror of a hazin’ captain. They could -have hove him overboard and swore he fell over—for the after guard was -as set against him as the fo’c’sle—but they didn’t. Just let themselves -be driv’ like sheep and kicked like terriers. It’s the same with the -Kanakas on this island, I expect.” - -“He’s got a personal ascendancy over them,” said Connart. - -“I reckon he’s got something like that,” said Captain Bowlby. - - - - - 3 - - - - -In a week they were settled down, and a few days later, the cargo having -been landed and stored, the _Golden Gleam_ took her departure. - -They went down to the beach to see her off; they watched her topsails -vanish beyond the reef, and they returned, feeling very much alone in -the world. A good man is warmth and light even to the souls of sinners. -Captain Bowlby was illiterate; his language was free; he was not a -saint, but he was a good, human man right through. The sea turns out -characters like this just as she turns out shells. It is a pity that -they have to cling to the ocean and the beaches; the cities want them. - -“I feel just as if I had lost a near relation,” said Mrs. Connart. - -“Well, we’ll have him back soon,” said her husband. “It’s up to us now -to get the copra to give him a cargo.” - -Next morning the new trader began business by laying out a selection of -goods on the verandah of his store. Mrs. Connart, who knew something of -the Polynesian dialects and who had the art of picking up unknown -tongues, had already got in touch with the Kanakas; they charmed and -pleased her, especially the children, and wherever she went she was -greeted by friendly faces. It seemed to her that the population of this -island, leaving out Seedbaum, her husband and herself, consisted -entirely of children, children of different sizes and different ages, -but children all the same. - -Returning that day from a long walk in the woods she found Connart -smoking a pipe on the verandah of their house. He looked rather -depressed. - -“I can’t make it out,” said he; “there’s no trade doing.” - -“Maybe they don’t know you have started in business yet.” - -“Oh, yes, they do; lots of them have passed and seen the store open; -they’ve turned to look at the goods, and they seemed attracted, but they -went on.” - -“Well, give them time,” said she. - -“Look,” said Connart, “there’s copra going to Seedbaum’s; they’re -trading with him, right enough.” - -Mrs. Connart watched the copra bearers, but said nothing. - -In her heart she felt that Seedbaum was moving against them by some -stealthy means. At first she thought that it might be possible he had -worked upon the native mind and induced the Kanakas to put a taboo upon -the newcomers, but she dismissed this idea at once. There was no taboo. -The Kanakas were not a bit afraid of either her or her husband, on the -contrary, there was every evidence of friendliness. - -“Well,” she said that night, when the store was closed for the day -without a knife or a stick of tobacco changing hands, “there’s nothing -to be done till we find out why they are acting so. It’s that creature, -I am sure. He began by robbing me of my beautiful cedar-wood chest, and -he’s going on to rob you of your chances in business. Well, let him -beware. I’m Christian enough not to wish to hurt him, but I’m Christian -enough to believe there’s a power that punishes the wicked, and he’s -wicked. I knew him for a wicked man directly he came on board the ship.” - -“He keeps to himself, and that’s one good thing,” said Connart; “but I -don’t see how he can stop the natives from trading with us.” - -“I don’t, either, but I know he does,” said she. - -The next day passed without business being done, and the next. - -“We may as well shut up shop, it seems to me,” said Connart. “How would -it be if you spoke to some of these people and asked them what is the -matter?” - -“I’ve thought of that,” said his wife, “and I held off -because—because—oh, I don’t know, it seems sort of indelicate to ask -people why they don’t come to one’s store. I’ll do it to-morrow morning -first thing. One mustn’t let one’s feelings stand in the way when one’s -living is concerned.” - -“I wish we had never come here,” said he, “for your sake.” - -“Never come here?” she cried. “Why, I wouldn’t for the earth have gone -anywhere else! I love the place and I love people, and what are -difficulties? Why, difficulties are the main excitement in life. If life -wasn’t an obstacle race, it would be a very flat affair. George, we have -got to beat that man, and I’m going to, you wait and see.” - -He kissed her and blessed her, and they sat down that night to a game of -cribbage, Seedbaum and the wickedness of the world forgotten. - -Next morning after breakfast Mrs. Connart went out. She passed through -the village and on to the beach, brilliant in the morning light, -breeze-blown and filled with the murmurs of the reef; some natives were -pulling in a net and she watched them, chatting to them and playing with -the children who had come down to secure the little fish. Then she had a -talk with a woman who was standing by, a woman dark and straight as an -arrow, a woman mild-eyed and with a voice sweet as the sound of running -water. - -Leaving her, Mrs. Connart passed to a man who was engaged in mending an -outrigger of one of the canoes hauled up on the beach; she had a talk -with him. - -Then she returned, walking slowly and thoughtfully to the house, where -she found her husband. - -“George,” said she. “I am right. It is that Creature. The people hate -him, but they are afraid of him. It seems absolutely absurd, but it is -so. He holds them in a spell. He kicks them and beats them, but they are -not afraid of that. It’s just him.” - -“Good Lord,” said Connart, “why on earth don’t they rise against him, -and tell him to go to the devil; he’s only one man, anyway.” - -“I don’t know,” said she. “It’s a mystery of human nature. He’s the -tyrant type, and it’s always been the same in the world; there’s some -sort of magnetism in that type that keeps folk under. History is full of -that. It’s the soft man and the kindly man and the good man that’s -assassinated, but tyrants seem to go free. He’s what he said he was, the -king of this place—well, we must see what we can do to pull him from his -throne. I wish there were more whites here.” - -“That’s the bother,” said Connart. - -Next morning they found a basket of fruit on their verandah, a gift from -some unknown person. It was as though the Kanakas, afraid to show their -sympathy and friendliness openly for the strangers, had done it in this -manner. But no one came to trade. - -That night two chickens, some sweet potatoes and another basket of fruit -were deposited in the same place. - -“And we can’t thank them,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I believe these -haven’t all come from one person. I think it’s everyone here—they all -like us. Oh, George, isn’t it maddening that we can’t have them openly -our friends, just because of that Beast!” - -“It is,” said George. - -Now at eleven o’clock that morning, Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah -and engaged on some needle-work, noticed a little native girl, who, -pausing at the garden gate and seeming undecided, at last picked up -courage, opened the gate and came towards the house. - -Connart was in the house, going over some accounts, when his wife ran in -to him. - -“George, come at once,” cried she; “such a dreadful thing—they’ve risen -against Seedbaum and they are killing him somewhere in the woods, and -they want us to go and see!” - -“Good Lord!” cried he, “killing him! Want us to go and see! Are they -mad?” - -He picked up his hat and came out on the verandah, where the pretty -little native girl was waiting, a flower of the scarlet hibiscus in her -hair and calm contentment in her eyes. - -“I can’t quite make out all she says,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I can -make out her meaning.” - -“You’d better stay here,” said he, “whilst I go; there may be trouble.” - -“I am not afraid,” she replied. “Come on, we may be too late.” - -They followed the child. - -“Tell her to hurry,” said Connart. - -“She says we need not hurry,” replied she; “as far as I can make out -they are only going to kill him—I expect they have him a prisoner -somewhere; well, much as I hate him, I am glad we will be able to save -him.” - -“That depends on how the natives take it,” said he. - -The child led them from the road by a path trod by the copra gatherers, -a path running through the wonderland of the woods, a green gloom where -the soaring palms shot upwards through a twilight roofed with moving -shadows and sun sparkles. - -They reached a glade where a number of natives were seated in a circle. -Above them and swinging by a cord from two trees was hanging a little -disk about half the size of a tambourine; the disk was made of cane, and -so constructed as to leave a small hole in the centre. An old native -woman seated under the disk was clapping her hands and repeating -something that sounded like an incantation. Every pair of eyes in the -whole of that assembly was fixed upon the disk. - -The child whispered something to Mrs. Connart. Then she turned from the -child and whispered to her husband. - -“It’s only witchcraft. That’s a soul trap. They are waiting for a fly to -pass through the hole in that thing. If it does, then Seedbaum will -die.” - -“Good heavens,” murmured Connart, with a half-laugh. “Why, the fellow -hasn’t any soul—not enough to furnish out a fly.” - -They watched patiently for ten minutes. There were plenty of flies; they -rested on the little tambourine, crawled round its edge, but not one -went through the hole. - -“Come,” whispered Connart. - -They withdrew, taking the path back. - -“It’s pathetic,” murmured she. - -“It’s damned foolishness,” he repeated. “They trade with him, and let -him kick them, and then go on with that nonsense. If they refused him -copra, they would bring him to his senses quick enough.” - -“Anyhow they hate him,” said she. - -“Much good that is,” he replied. - - - - - 4 - - - - -Now it came about that the soul trap—turning out a dead failure, since -not a single fly went through the hole—instead of destroying Seedbaum, -fixed him on a pedestal more secure than that which he had hitherto -occupied. - -He was indestructible, and the power which he exercised over the native -mind threatened to be as indestructible as himself. - -However, vengeance was coming. Retribution for all the wrongs he had -committed, his swindlings, brutalities and beatings. - -It came in this wise: - -One afternoon Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah and reading _The -Moths of the Limberlost_, heard the cries of a child. - -Right in front of the house, King Seedbaum was beating a native child -for some fault or fancied disrespect towards his royal highness, cuffing -it and cuffing it, whilst the squeals of the cuffed one affronted the -heavens and the ears of all listeners. - -Now, to touch a child or dog or cat in Mrs. Connart’s presence was to -raise a devil. White as death she rushed into the house and white as -death she rushed out again. She held her riding-whip, a Mexican quirt, -ladies’ size, but horribly efficient in energetic hands. - -Seedbaum saw her coming, couldn’t understand, caught the first lash on -his right arm and along his back—he was wearing the pyjama suit—and his -yell brought the village flocking and Connart running from a field where -he was laying out some plants. - -He saw the quirt lashing over Seedbaum’s shoulder, across his legs, and -across the back, for the King of Maleka was now running, running and -pursued for ten yards or so whilst the quirt got one last blow in. - -Then he had his wife in his arms, and she was weeping. - -“Did he touch you?” cried Connart. - -“No—it was a child,” she gasped. “Beast! Look, he has run into his -house.” - -The street was filled with a crowd that all through the beating had -remained spell-bound. Now it broke up into knots and small parties, all -talking together excitedly. - -Connart, with his arm around his wife, drew her into the house. - -She sat down on a couch and laughed and sobbed. She was half hysterical, -but not for long. - -“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I would do it again. It’s not because -of us—but because he was beating a child.” - -“Brute!” said Connart. “I’ll go down now and give him more. I want to -have it out with him right now.” He turned to the door. She caught him. - -“No,” she cried, “he’s had enough. He won’t do it again. Listen, what’s -that?” - -From away in the direction of Seedbaum’s house came a sound like the -swarming of angry bees, also shouts. - -They rushed to the door and saw Seedbaum. Seedbaum with fifty people -round him, and every person trying to beat him at the same time. - -“Good God,” said Connart, “you’ve taught them the trick—they’ll kill -him.” - -“He’s got away,” cried Mrs. Connart. - -Seedbaum, breaking from the crowd, was making up the street, the whole -village was after him; he passed the Connarts’ house and headed for the -woods where he disappeared. Then his pursuers drew off, and, rushing to -the house of Connart, swarmed at the railings, shouting and waving and -laughing, whilst Mrs. Connart interpreted. - -“They say he’ll never come back to the village again,” said she, “for -they’ll kill him if he does; that he’ll have to live in the woods. Oh, -George! I’m frightened—what will be the end of it all?” - - * * * * * - -The end was a whale ship that came into the lagoon. Seedbaum, living in -the woods and supported by the generosity of the Connarts, was given -notice by the three chiefs of the island, Matua, Tamura and Ratupea by -name, that if he did not go away in the whale ship he would be killed -before the next ship arrived. And he went. - -He was almost friendly with the Connarts, in return for their food and -protection, at the last, and as the natives would allow him to take -nothing with him, he had to leave everything behind him, including the -red cedar-wood chest, which thus came back to its rightful owner. - -He did not even threaten the natives with governmental retribution; he -knew he was done and placed out of court by his own conduct. - -But the thing that always remained with Connart out of this affair was -the fact that a population of active and vigorous people would still -have been down-trodden by a merciless tyrant but for a little, quiet, -calm-eyed woman, who had unconsciously and just from an uprising of her -own spirit, “shown them the trick.” - -Spirit—after all, what else is there in the world beside it? - - - - -ALLELUIA - -By T. F. POWYS - - -Follow me into one of those shining days of April, when the blue in the -sky has lost its March iciness and the village of Wallbridge pauses in -its usual grey monotony to look for events. - -Events come indeed, as they always do, for those who wait long enough -for them. The first intimation that something was going to happen -chanced to be picked up in the road by Mr. Tapper, labourer of Ford’s -Farm. - -Mr. Tapper had once found a penny in the mud, and ever since that -eventful day the good man had kept his eye fixed upon the road when he -walked abroad. - -Mr. Tapper handed the paper he had found when teatime came round to his -daughter Lily, remarking as he did so: - -“’Tain’t nothink,” which merely meant, of course, that the paper wasn’t -a penny. - -Lily—the pretty Lily—gave her head a little shake, and read at the top -of the printed sheet the word “Alleluia.” - -It was all out then, of course, as soon as the pretty Lily had got hold -of it, all the whole merry matter of the coming of Alleluia into -Wallbridge. After he had handed in those papers at the doors—with the -exception of the ones that he wisely dropped in the road, well knowing -that anything picked up always interests—invited everyone to his -meetings. Alleluia for he must have known everyone would call him -Alleluia, began to preach and sing in a devout manner in the handsome -tent that he had set up near to his van. He was so gentle and polite and -so good at starting those emotional tunes—invented by Mr. Moody—that -Wallbridge at once praised and patronised him. - -Alleluia had come down from Oxford, and his confiding and childlike -look, together with his silky moustache, had led him into the bypaths -and hedges and so on and on until he reached the village of Wallbridge. - -There were, of course, troubles in even so gentle a young man’s path; -there were difficulties and doubts—little worries—so that Alleluia’s -eyes were not always without their tears. - -The Wallbridge people were not always so loving as they should be. The -Rev. John Sutton, the vicar, disapproved of the preacher’s looks and was -even slightly contemptuous of the glory hymns. This unkindness hit the -young man hard, because, outwardly, the vicar seemed pleased with the -work that he was doing. - -And there was Lily. Lily had to be considered even by Mr. Tapper, her -father, as something female. Mr. Tapper put her down entirely, with her -mother included, to the simple fact that he had stayed too long out one -lovely June fair day at the Stickland revels. Even that day he saw as -all Lily’s fault, feeling, truly perhaps, that the child brings her -parents together. - -Even then Mr. Tapper was middle-aged, but that only made him blame Lily -the more. If it had not been for Lily, Mr. Tapper might have gone on -hawking saucepan lids and receiving beer in exchange for the country -matters in his tavern songs. - -When Lily was eighteen a very important event happened to her. She -bought a new looking-glass to replace a cracked one that had always -given her face such an ugly cut down the middle. Before this new one—she -had stolen the money for it from her drunken parent’s pocket—she could -touch herself and preen herself, and wonder at a red mark on her bosom -that looked almost like a bite. - -That must not happen again; of course it wouldn’t after Alleluia’s -preaching; young Wakely would have to take her home more gently in -future. Following the lovely hymns, it was not quite proper to be -covered and eaten and bitten by kisses all the way home. - -“No you mustn’t, Tom.” - -Pretty Lily said the words before her glass in order to practise them. -She used to sit quite near to the young preacher, and had got his -child’s look and his silky upper lip quite by heart. He would be always -speaking about love and about doing kind actions to one another, and -every hymn was filled with the delicious savour of subdued sin. - -Lily was quite moved by all the excitement, but she wished to be more -careful about Tom, and so she was.... - -Alleluia had grown fond of looking upwards too, and for many nights he -had seen only one face in the sky. Alleluia was forced to allow that the -pretty face in the sky had nothing whatever to do with the hymns he had -been singing; he knew it was not God’s face, nor David’s, nor any other -heavenly person’s. But, alas, it so pleased Alleluia that he wandered -abroad in search of it sometimes, and often it was midnight before the -preacher opened his van door to go to bed. - - * * * * * - -The excessive longing for events to happen in a village sometimes -over-reaches itself; it did, indeed, over-reach itself this time in -Wallbridge. - -As usual, events pass in a sober grey way in the country. The dismal -sermons of all the Rev. John Suttons are nearly always of the same -dismal colour. And even the Wallbridge quarrel between old Mother Wimple -and Farmer Told had become dull coloured, too. The sun shone as best it -could, and sometimes the moon would appear, though none of these -heavenly lights proved strong enough to break the leaden colouring. - -But the people had longed, and when the people long something happens. - -It came in this wise. A morning dawned with a splash of red, that -splashed the grey sod, that splashed the hills and the meadows, and even -gave to Farmer Told’s white cow a red blood-stained look. - -Her hymn-book soaked, her pretty Sunday clothes so sadly torn, her -pretty lily face rudely beaten and broken: there was quite a little pool -of blood in the chalk-pit, the grey colour lurid for once. - -This was more than peaceful Wallbridge had wished for. This dreadful -dash of red made even the April sunshine look a little queer. It could -never be the same usual Wallbridge wind that blew upon the stalwart -forms of the inspectors and policemen who had the case in hand. - -Alleluia had been found, almost crazed, near the chalkpit; he had been -looking for pretty Lily all night, he said, and had only found her at -dawn. There was blood upon his clothes, he had held her body in his -arms. - -Others told so much, too. They had been seen together very often; they -had been followed, watched, and the stars needs must have blushed, so -folks said. Tom Wakely had been away that red night, so it could not -have been he who had done it. - -Honest Mr. Tapper gave the strongest evidence, and Alleluia was hanged. - -Perhaps this was a little hard upon Alleluia, but all men said he should -have stuck to his hymn-singing and not gone out to look for pretty -lilies at night-time. One wit even remarked that he could have sung his -hymns in the town in a cheaper fashion without a stretch of the neck at -the end of it. - -The red splash of pretty Lily’s blood coloured some dozen or so years of -Wallbridge life, but after that time was passed the old grey began to -hang heavy again and an owl hooted. - -The owl must have settled upon Mr. Tapper’s chimney, so near did the -sound of its hooting seem to Mr. Tapper. - -It was midnight, two old women—one was Mrs. Tapper—were sitting by the -dying man’s side. - -“’E do die ’ard,” Mrs. Tapper remarked in a friendly tone. - -Mr. Tapper was thoughtful. - -“If only he hadn’t wandered off into the lanes on that fair day in June! -He might even have been drinking beer instead of dying hard.” - -The owl perched upon the cottage chimney hooted again. The ice upon -Ford’s pond cracked—the midnight frost was abroad. - -Mr. Tapper spoke his last words. - -“Our Lily, she weren’t murdered by thik young preacher,” said Mr. -Tapper. - -“Who did kill she?” the old women whispered excitedly. - -“’Twas I,” said Mr. Tapper, “because young Wakely never give I thik beer -’e’d promised. I did blame she for it.” - -The owl hooted, the old women looked at one another—and Mr. Tapper’s jaw -slowly dropped. - - - - -THE MONKEY’S PAW - -By W. W. JACOBS - - From The Lady of the Barge, by W. W. Jacobs. - Copyright, 1902, by Dodd, Mead and Company. - - - - - 1 - - - - -Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of -Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. -Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the -game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and -unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired -old lady knitting placidly by the fire. - -“Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake -after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from -seeing it. - -“I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he -stretched out his hand. “Check.” - -“I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with -his hand poised over the board. - -“Mate,” replied the son. - -“That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden -and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way -places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a -torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because -only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.” - -“Never mind, dear,” said his wife, soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win the -next one.” - -Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance -between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a -guilty grin in his thin grey beard. - -“There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and -heavy footsteps came toward the door. - -The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard -condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with -himself so that Mrs. White said, “Tut tut!” and coughed gently as her -husband entered the room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye -and rubicund of visage. - -“Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him. - -The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the -fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whiskey and tumblers -and stood a small copper kettle on the fire. - -At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the -little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from -distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke -of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange -peoples. - -“Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son. -“When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look -at him.” - -“He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely. - -“I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round -a bit, you know.” - -“Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He -put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again. - -“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said -the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about a -monkey’s paw or something, Morris?” - -“Nothing,” said the soldier, hastily. “Leastways, nothing worth -hearing.” - -“Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White, curiously. - -“Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the -sergeant-major, off-handedly. - -His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly -put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host -filled it for him. - -“To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, “it’s -just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.” - -He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew -back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously. - -“And what is there special about it?” inquired Mr. White as he took it -from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table. - -“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a -very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and -that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell -on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it.” - -His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their -light laughter jarred somewhat. - -“Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert White, cleverly. - -The soldier regarded him in the way that middle-age is wont to regard -presumptuous youth. “I have,” he said, quietly, and his blotchy face -whitened. - -“And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs. White. - -“I did,” said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his -strong teeth. - -“And has anybody else wished?” persisted the old lady. - -“The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply; “I don’t know -what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got -the paw.” - -His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group. - -“If you’ve had your three wishes, it’s no good to you now, then, -Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?” - -The soldier shook his head. “Fancy, I suppose,” he said, slowly. “I did -have some idea of selling it, but I don’t think I will. It has caused -enough mischief already. Besides, people won’t buy. They think it’s a -fairy tale; some of them, and those who do think anything of it want to -try it first and pay me afterward.” - -“If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man, eyeing him -keenly, “would you have them?” - -“I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.” - -He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb, -suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down -and snatched it off. - -“Better let it burn,” said the soldier, solemnly. - -“If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.” - -“I won’t,” said his friend doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If you -keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again -like a sensible man.” - -The other shook his head and examined his new possession closely. “How -do you do it?” he inquired. - -“Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,” said the sergeant-major, -“but I warn you of the consequences.” - -“Sounds like the Arabian Nights,” said Mrs. White, as she rose and began -to set the supper. “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs of -hands for me?” - -Her husband drew the talisman from pocket, and then all three burst into -laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his face, caught -him by the arm. - -“If you must wish,” he said gruffly, “wish for something sensible.” - -Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned -his friend to the table. In the business of supper the talisman was -partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an enthralled -fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s adventures in India. - -“If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those he -has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed behind the guest, -just in time for him to catch the last train, “we shan’t make much out -of it.” - -“Did you give him anything for it, father?” inquired Mrs. White, -regarding her husband closely. - -“A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly. “He didn’t want it, but I made -him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.” - -“Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re going to be -rich, and famous and happy. Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin -with; then you can’t be henpecked.” - -He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs. White armed with -an antimacassar. - -Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. “I don’t -know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said, slowly. “It seems to -me I’ve got all I want.” - -“If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t you?” -said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish for two hundred -pounds then; that’ll just do it.” - -His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the -talisman, as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at -his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords. - -“I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man distinctly. - -A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a -shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him. - -“It moved,” he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay -on the floor. “As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.” - -“Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son as he picked it up and -placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.” - -“It must have been your fancy, father,” said his wife, regarding him -anxiously. - -He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm done, but it -gave me a shock all the same.” - -They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes. -Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started -nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual and -depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old couple -rose to retire for the night. - -“I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of -your bed,” said Herbert, as he bade them good-night, “and something -horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket -your ill-gotten gains.” - -He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces -in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed at it -in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh, he felt -on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw over it. His -hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his -hand on his coat and went up to bed. - - - - - 2 - - - - -In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the -breakfast table he laughed at his fears. There was an air of prosaic -wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the previous night, -and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the sideboard and -with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its virtues. - -“I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “The idea of -our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in these -days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you, father?” - -“Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert. - -“Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father, “that -you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.” - -“Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert as -he rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean, -avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.” - -His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the -road; and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the -expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent her -from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her from -referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous habits -when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill. - -“Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he -comes home,” she said, as they sat at dinner. - -“I dare say,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but for -all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.” - -“You thought it did,” said the old lady soothingly. - -“I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it; I had -just——What’s the matter?” - -His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a -man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house, appeared -to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental connection with the -two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger was well dressed, and -wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he paused at the gate, -and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his hand upon -it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open and walked up the -path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands behind her, and -hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put that useful article -of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair. - -She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He -gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the old -lady apologised for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s coat, -a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then waited as -patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his business, but -he was at first strangely silent. - -“I—was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece -of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and Meggins.’” - -The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked, breathlessly. -“Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is it?” - -Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said, hastily. “Sit -down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m -sure, sir;” and he eyed the other wistfully. - -“I’m sorry——” began the visitor. - -“Is he hurt?” demanded the mother, wildly. - -The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said, quietly, “but he is -not in any pain.” - -“Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank God for -that! Thank——” - -She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned -upon her, and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s -averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slow-witted -husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long silence. - -“He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a low -voice. - -“Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion, -“yes.” - -He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand -between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old -courting-days nearly forty years before. - -“He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the -visitor. “It is hard.” - -The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The firm -wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great loss,” -he said, without looking around. “I beg that you will understand I am -only their servant and merely obeying orders.” - -There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring, -and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his -friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action. - -“I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility,” -continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in -consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a -certain sum as compensation.” - -Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a -look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words. “How -much?” - -“Two hundred pounds,” was the answer. - -Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out -his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the -floor. - - - - - 3 - - - - -In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried -their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It -was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realise it, and -remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to -happen—something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for old -hearts to bear. - -But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the -hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes -they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about, -and their days were long to weariness. It was about a week after that -the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and -found himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued -weeping came from the window. He raised himself in bed and listened. - -“Come back,” he said, tenderly. “You will be cold.” - -“It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh. - -The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his -eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden -wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start. - -“_The paw!_” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!” - -He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?” - -She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she said, -quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?” - -“It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?” - -She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek. - -“I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I think -of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?” - -“Think of what?” he questioned. - -“The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.” - -“Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely. - -“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it -quickly, and wish our boy alive again.” - -The man sat up in bed and flung the bed-clothes from his quaking limbs. -“Good God, you are mad!” he cried, aghast. - -“Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish——Oh, my boy, my boy!” - -Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,” he -said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.” - -“We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly; “why -not the second?” - -“A coincidence,” stammered the old man. - -“Go and get it and wish,” cried his wife, quivering with excitement. - -The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has been -dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could -only recognise him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to -see then, how now?” - -“Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. -“Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?” - -He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then -to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear -that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he -could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as -he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with -sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until -he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his -hand. - -Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white -and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon -it. He was afraid of her. - -“_Wish!_” she cried, in a strong voice. - -“It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered. - -“_Wish!_” repeated his wife. - -He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.” - -The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he -sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked -to the window and raised the blind. - -He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the -figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end, -which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing -pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger -than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of -relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a -minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically -beside him. - -Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A -stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. -The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up -his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went -downstairs for a candle. - -At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike -another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be -scarcely audible, sounded on the front door. - -The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood -motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he -turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind -him. A third knock sounded through the house. - -“_What’s that?_” cried the old woman, starting up. - -“A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones—“a rat. It passed me on the -stairs.” - -His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the -house. - -“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!” - -She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by -the arm, held her tightly. - -“What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely. - -“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I -forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I -must open the door.” - -“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling. - -“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m -coming, Herbert; I’m coming.” - -There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench -broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, -and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the -chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the -socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and panting. - -“The bolt,” she cried loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.” - -But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor -in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside -got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, -and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the -passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came -slowly back and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and -frantically breathed his third and last wish. - -The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in -the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold -wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and -misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then -to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet -and deserted road. - - - - -THE CREATURES - -By WALTER DE LA MARE - - From The Riddle and Other Stories, by Walter de la Mare. - Copyright, 1923, by Walter de la Mare. - By permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. - - -It was the ebbing light of evening that recalled me out of my story to a -consciousness of my whereabouts. I dropped the squat little red book to -my knee and glanced out of the narrow and begrimed oblong window. We -were skirting the eastern coast of cliffs, to the very edge of which a -ploughman, stumbling along behind his two great horses, was driving the -last of his dark furrows. In a cleft far down between the rocks a cold -and idle sea was soundlessly laying its frigid garlands of foam. I -stared over the flat stretch of waters, then turned my head, and looked -with a kind of suddenness into the face of my one fellow-traveller. - -He had entered the carriage, all but unheeded, yet not altogether -unresented, at the last country station. His features were a little -obscure in the fading daylight that hung between our four narrow walls, -but apparently his eyes had been fixed on my face for some little time. - -He narrowed his lids at this unexpected confrontation, jerked back his -head, and cast a glance out of his mirky glass at the slip of -greenish-bright moon that was struggling into its full brilliance above -the dun, swelling uplands. - -“It’s a queer experience, railway-travelling,” he began abruptly, in a -low, almost deprecating voice, drawing his hand across his eyes. “One is -cast into a passing privacy with a fellow-stranger and then is gone.” It -was as if he had been patiently awaiting the attention of a chosen -listener. - -I nodded, looking at him. “That privacy, too,” he ejaculated, “all -that!” My eyes turned towards the window again: bare, thorned, black -January hedge, inhospitable salt coast, flat waste of northern water. -Our engine driver promptly shut off his steam, and we slid almost -noiselessly out of sight of sky and sea into a cutting. - -“It’s a desolate country,” I ventured to remark. - -“Oh, yes, ‘desolate,’” he echoed a little wearily. “But what frets me is -the way we have of arrogating to ourselves the offices of judge, jury, -and counsel all in one. As if this earth.... I never forget it—the -futility, the presumption. It _leads_ nowhere. We drive in—into all this -silence, this—this, ‘forsakenness,’ this dream of a world between her -lights of day and night time. We desecrate. Consciousness! What restless -monkeys men are.” He recovered himself, swallowed his indignation with -an obvious gulp. “As if,” he continued, in more chastened tones—“as if -that other gate were not for ever ajar, into God knows what of peace and -mystery.” He stooped forward, lean, darkened, objurgatory. “Don’t we -make our world? Isn’t that our blessed, our betrayed responsibility?” - -I nodded, and ensconced myself, like a dog in straw, in the basest of -all responses to a rare, even if eccentric, candour—caution. - -“Well,” he continued, a little weariedly, “that’s the indictment. Small -wonder if it will need a trumpet to blare us into that last ‘Family -Prayers.’ Then perhaps a few solitaries—just a few—will creep out of -their holes and fastnesses, and draw mercy from the merciful on the -cities of the plain. The buried talent will shine none the worse for the -long, long looming of its napery spun from dream and desire. - -“Years ago—ten, fifteen, perhaps—I chanced on the queerest specimen of -this order of the ‘talented.’ Much the same country, too. This”—he swept -his glance out towards the now invisible sea—“this is a kind of dwarf -replica of it. More naked, smoother, more sudden and precipitous, more -‘forsaken,’ moody! Alone! The trees are shorn there, as if with -monstrous shears, by the winter gales. The air’s salt. It is a country -of stones and emerald meadows, of green, meandering, aimless lanes, of -farms set in their cliffs and valleys like rough time-bedimmed jewels, -as if by some angel of humanity, wandering between dark and daybreak. - -“I was younger then—in body: the youth of the mind is for men of a -certain age; yours, maybe, and mine. Even then, even at that, I was -sickened of crowds, of that unimaginable London—swarming wilderness of -mankind in which a poor, lost, thirsty dog from Otherwhere tastes first -the full meaning of that idle word ‘forsaken.’ ‘Forsaken by whom?’ is -the question I ask myself now. Visitors to my particular paradise were -few then—as if, my dear sir, we are not all of us visitors, visitants, -revenants, on earth, panting for time in which to tell and share our -secrets, roving in search of marks that shall prove our quest not vain, -not unprecedented, not a treachery. But let that be. - -“I would start off morning after morning, bread and cheese in pocket, -from the bare old house I lodged in, bound for that unforeseen nowhere -for which the heart, the fantasy, aches. Lingering hot noondays would -find me stretched in a state half-comatose, yet vigilant, on the -close-flowered turf of the fields or cliffs, on the sun-baked sands and -rocks, soaking in the scene and life around me like some pilgrim -chameleon. It was in hope to lose my way that I would set out. How shall -a man find his way unless he lose it? Now and then I succeeded. That -country is large, and its land and sea marks easily cheat the stranger. -I was still of an age, you see, when my ‘small door’ was ajar, and I -planted a solid foot to keep it from shutting. But how could I know what -I was after? One just shakes the tree of life, and the rare fruits come -tumbling down, to rot for the most part in the lush grasses. - -“What was most haunting and provocative in that far-away country was its -fleeting resemblance to the country of dream. You stand, you sit, or lie -prone on its bud-starred heights, and look down; the green, dispersed, -treeless landscape spreads beneath you, with its hollow and mounded -slopes, clustering farmstead, and scatter of village, all motionless -under the vast wash of sun and blue, like the drop-scene of some -enchanted playhouse centuries old. So, too, the visionary bird-haunted -headlands, veiled faintly in a mist of unreality above their broken -stones and the enormous saucer of the sea. - -“You cannot guess there what you may not chance upon, or whom. Bells -clash, boom, and quarrel hollowly on the edge of darkness in those -breakers. Voices waver across the fainter winds. The birds cry in a -tongue unknown yet not unfamiliar. The sky is the hawks’ and the stars’. -_There_ one is on the edge of life, of the unforeseen, whereas our -cities—are not our desiccated, jaded minds ever continually pressing and -edging further and further away from freedom, the vast unknown, the -infinite presence, picking a fool’s journey from sensual fact to fact at -the tail of that he-ass called Reason? I suggest that in that solitude -the spirit within us realises that it treads the outskirts of a region -long since called the Imagination. I assert we have strayed, and in our -blindness abandoned——” - - * * * * * - -My stranger paused in his frenzy, glanced out at me from his obscure -corner as if he had intended to stun, to astonish me with some violent -heresy. We puffed out slowly, laboriously from a “Halt” at which in the -gathering dark and moonshine we had for some while been at a standstill. -Never was wedding-guest more desperately at the mercy of ancient -mariner. - -“Well, one day,” he went on, lifting his voice a little to master the -resounding heart-beats of our steam-engine—“one late afternoon, in my -goalless wanderings, I had climbed to the summit of a steep grass-grown -cart-track, winding up dustily between dense, untended hedges. Even then -I might have missed the house to which it led, for, hair-pin fashion, -the track here abruptly turned back on itself, and only a far fainter -footpath led on over the hill-crest. I might, I say, have missed the -house and—and its inmates, if I had not heard the musical sound of what -seemed like the twangling of a harp. This thin-drawn, sweet, tuneless -warbling welled over the close green grass of the height as if out of -space. Truth cannot say whether it was of that air or of my own fantasy. -Nor did I ever discover what instrument, whether of man or Ariel, had -released a strain so pure and yet so bodiless. - -“I pushed on and found myself in command of a gorse-strewn height, a -stretch of country that lay a few hundred paces across the steep and -sudden valley in between. In a V-shaped entry to the left, and sunwards, -lay an azure and lazy tongue of the sea. And as my eye slid softly -thence and upwards and along the sharp, green horizon line against the -glass-clear turquoise of space, it caught the flinty glitter of a square -chimney. I pushed on, and presently found myself at the gate of a -farmyard. - -“There was but one straw-mow upon its staddles. A few fowls were sunning -themselves in their dust-baths. White and pied doves preened and cooed -on the roof of an outbuilding as golden with its lichens as if the -western sun had scattered its dust for centuries upon the large slate -slabs. Just that life and the whispering of the wind: nothing more. Yet -even at one swift glimpse I seemed to have trespassed upon a peace that -had endured for ages; to have crossed the viewless border that divides -time from eternity. I leaned, resting, over the gate, and could have -remained there for hours, lapsing ever more profoundly into the blessed -quietude that had stolen over my thoughts. - -“A bent-up woman appeared at the dark entry of a stone shed opposite to -me, and, shading her eyes, paused in prolonged scrutiny of the stranger. -At that I entered the gate and, explaining that I had lost my way and -was tired and thirsty, asked for some milk. She made no reply, but after -peering up at me, with something between suspicion and apprehension on -her weather-beaten old face, led me towards the house which lay to the -left on the slope of the valley, hidden from me till then by plumy -bushes of tamarisk. - -“It was a low grave house, grey-chimneyed, its stone walls traversed by -a deep shadow cast by the declining sun, its dark windows rounded and -uncurtained, its door wide open to the porch. She entered the house, and -I paused upon the threshold. A deep unmoving quiet lay within, like that -of water in a cave renewed by the tide. Above a table hung a wreath of -wild flowers. To the right was a heavy oak settle upon the flags. A beam -of sunlight pierced the air of the staircase from an upper window. - -“Presently a dark, long-faced, gaunt man appeared from within, -contemplating me, as he advanced, out of eyes that seemed not so much to -fix the intruder as to encircle his image, as the sea contains the -distant speck of a ship on its wide, blue bosom of water. They might -have been the eyes of the blind; the windows of a house in dream to -which the inmate must make something of a pilgrimage to look out upon -actuality. Then he smiled, and the long, dark features, melancholy yet -serene, took light upon them, as might a bluff of rock beneath a thin -passing wash of sunshine. With a gesture he welcomed me into the large -dark-flagged kitchen, cool as a cellar, airy as a belfry, its sweet air -traversed by a long oblong of light out of the west. - -“The wide shelves of the painted dresser were laden with crockery. A -wreath of freshly-gathered flowers hung over the chimney-piece. As we -entered, a twittering cloud of small birds, robins, hedge-sparrows, -chaffinches fluttered up a few inches from floor and sill and -window-seat, and once more, with tiny starry-dark eyes observing me, -soundlessly alighted. I could hear the infinitesimal _tic-tac_ of their -tiny claws upon the slate. My gaze drifted out of the window into the -garden beyond, a cavern of clearer crystal and colour than that which -astounded the eyes of young Aladdin. - -“Apart from the twisted garland of wild flowers, the shining metal of -range and copper candlestick, and the bright-scoured crockery, there was -no adornment in the room except a rough frame, hanging from a nail in -the wall, and enclosing what appeared to be a faint patterned fragment -of blue silk or fine linen. The chairs and table were old and heavy. A -low, light warbling, an occasional _skirr_ of wing, a haze-like drone of -bee and fly—these were the only sounds that edged a quiet intensified in -its profundity by the remote stirrings of the sea. - -“The house was stilled as by a charm, yet thought within me asked no -questions; speculation was asleep in its kennel. I sat down to the milk -and bread, the honey and fruit which the old woman laid out upon the -table, and her master seated himself opposite to me, now in a low -sibilant whisper—a tongue which they seemed to understand—addressing -himself to the birds, and now, as if with an effort, raising those -strange grey-green eyes of his to bestow a quiet remark upon me. He -asked, rather in courtesy than with any active interest, a few -questions, referring to the world, its business and transports—_our_ -beautiful world—as an astronomer in the small hours might murmur a few -words to the chance-sent guest of his solitude concerning the secrets of -Uranus or Saturn. There is another, an inexplorable side to the moon. -Yet he said enough for me to gather that he, too, was of that small -tribe of the aloof and wild to which our cracked old word ‘forsaken’ -might be applied, hermits, lamas, clay-matted fakirs, and such-like; the -snowy birds that play and cry amid mid-oceanic surges; the living of an -oasis of the wilderness; which share a reality only distantly dreamed of -by the time-driven thought-corroded congregations of man. - -“Yet so narrow and hazardous I somehow realised was the brink of -fellow-being (shall I call it?) which we shared, he and I, that again -and again fantasy within me seemed to hover over that precipice Night -knows as fear. It was he, it seemed, with that still embracive -contemplation of his, with that far-away yet reassuring smile, that kept -my poise, my balance. ‘No,’ some voice within him seemed to utter, ‘you -are safe; the bounds are fixed; though hallucination chaunt its decoy, -you shall not irretrievably pass over. Eat and drink, and presently -return to life.’ And I listened, and, like that of a drowsy child in its -cradle, my consciousness sank deeper and deeper, stilled, pacified into -the dream which, as it seemed, this soundless house of stone now reared -its walls. - -“I had all but finished my meal when I heard footsteps approaching on -the flags without. The murmur of other voices, distinguishably shrill -yet guttural even at a distance, and in spite of the dense stones and -beams of the house which had blunted their timbre, had already reached -me. Now the feet halted. I turned my head—cautiously, even perhaps -apprehensively—and confronted two figures in the doorway. - -“I cannot now guess the age of my entertainer. These children—for -children they were in face and gesture and effect, though as to form and -stature apparently in their last teens—these children were far more -problematical. I say ‘form and stature,’ yet obviously they were -dwarfish. Their heads were sunken between their shoulders, their hair -thick, their eyes disconcertingly deep-set. They were ungainly; their -features peculiarly irregular, as if two races from the ends of the -earth had in them intermingled their blood and strangeness; as if, -rather animal and angel had connived in their creation. - -“But if some inward light lay on the still eyes, on the gaunt, -sorrowful, quixotic countenance that now was fully and intensely bent on -mine, emphatically that light was theirs also. He spoke to them; they -answered—in English, my own language, without a doubt: but an English -slurred, broken, and unintelligible to me, yet clear as a bell, -haunting, penetrating, pining as voice of nix or siren. My ears drank in -the sound as an Arab parched with desert sand falls on his dried belly -and gulps in mouthfuls of crystal water. The birds hopped nearer as if -beneath the rod of an enchanter. A sweet continuous clamour arose from -their small throats. The exquisite colours of plume and bosom burned, -greened, melted in the level sun-ray, in the darker air beyond. - -“A kind of mournful gaiety, a lamentable felicity, such as rings in the -cadences of an old folk-song, welled into my heart. I was come back to -the borders of Eden, bowed and outwearied, gazing from out of dream into -dream, homesick, ‘forsaken.’ - -“Well, years have gone by,” muttered my fellow-traveller deprecatingly, -“but I have not forgotten that Eden’s primeval trees and shade. - -“They led me out, these bizarre companions, a he and a she, if I may put -it as crudely as my apprehension of them put it to me then. Through a -broad door they conducted me—if one who leads may be said to be -conducted—into their garden. Garden! A full mile long, between -undiscerned walls, it sloped and narrowed towards a sea at whose dark -unfoamed blue, even at this distance, my eyes dazzled. Yet how can one -call that a garden which reveals no ghost of a sign of human -arrangement, of human slavery, of spade or hoe? - -“Great boulders shouldered up, tessellated, embossed, powdered with a -thousand various mosses and lichens, between a flowering greenery of -weeds. Wind-stunted, clear-emerald, lichen-tufted trees smoothed and -crisped the inflowing airs of the ocean with their leaves and spines, -sibilating a thin scarce-audible music. Scanty, rank, and uncultivated -fruits hung close their vivid-coloured cheeks to the gnarled branches. -It was the harbourage of birds, the small embowering parlour of their -house of life, under an evening sky, pure and lustrous as a water-drop. -It cried, ‘Hospital’ to the wanderers of the universe. - -“As I look back in ever-thinning, nebulous remembrance on my two -companions, hear their voices gutturally sweet and shrill, catch again -their being, so to speak, I realise that there was a kind of Orientalism -in their effect. Their instant courtesy was not Western, the smiles that -greeted me, whenever I turned my head to look back at them, were -infinitely friendly, yet infinitely remote. So ungainly, so far from our -notions of beauty and symmetry were their bodies and faces, those heads -thrust heavily between their shoulders, their disproportioned yet -graceful arms and hands, that the children in some of our English -villages might be moved to stone them, while their elders looked on and -laughed. - -“Dusk was drawing near; soon night would come. The colours of the -sunset, sucking its extremest dye from every leaf and blade and petal, -touched my consciousness even then with a vague fleeting alarm. - -“I remember I asked these strange and happy beings, repeating my -question twice or thrice, as we neared the surfy entry of the valley -upon whose sands a tiny stream emptied its fresh water—I asked them if -it was they who had planted this multitude of flowers, many of a kind -utterly unknown to me and alien to a country inexhaustibly rich. ‘We -wait; we wait!’ I think they cried. And it was as if their cry awoke -echo from the green-walled valleys of the mind into which I had strayed. -Shall I confess that tears came into my eyes as I gazed hungrily around -me on the harvest of their patience? - -“Never was actuality so close to dream. It was not only an unknown -country, slipped in between these placid hills, on which I had chanced -in my ramblings. I had entered for a few brief moments a strange region -of consciousness. I was treading, thus accompanied, amid a world of -welcoming and fearless life—oh, friendly to me!—the paths of man’s -imagination, the kingdom from which thought and curiosity, vexed -scrutiny and lust—a lust it may be for nothing more impious than the -actual—had prehistorically proved the insensate means of his banishment. -‘Reality,’ ‘Consciousness’: had he for ‘the time being’ unwittingly, -unhappily missed his way? Would he be led back at length to that garden -wherein cockatrice and basilisk bask, harmlessly, at peace? - -“I speculate now. In that queer, yes, and possibly sinister company, -sinister only because it was alien to me, I did not speculate. In their -garden, the familiar was become the strange—‘the strange’ that lurks in -the inmost heart, unburdens its riches in trance, flings its light and -gilding upon love, gives heavenly savour to the intemperate bowl of -passion, and is the secret of our incommunicable pity. What is yet -queerer, these things were evidently glad of my company. They stumped -after me (as might yellow men after some Occidental quadruped never -before seen) in merry collusion of nods and wreathed smiles at this -perhaps unprecedented intrusion. - -“I stood for a moment looking out over the placid surface of the sea. A -ship in sail hung phantom-like on the horizon. I pined to call my -discovery to its seamen. The tide gushed, broke, spent itself on the -bare boulders, I was suddenly cold and alone, and gladly turned back -into the garden, my companions instinctively separating to let me pass -between them. I breathed in the rare, almost exotic heat, the tenuous, -honeyed, almond-laden air of its flowers and birds—gull, sheldrake, -plover, wagtail, finch, robin, which as I half-angrily, half-sadly -realised fluttered up in momentary dismay only at _my_ presence—the -embodied spectre of their enemy, man. Man? Then who were these?... - -“I lost again a way lost early that morning, as I trudged inland at -night. The dark came, warm and starry. I was dejected and exhausted -beyond words. That night I slept in a barn and was awakened soon after -daybreak by the crowing of cocks. I went out, dazed and blinking into -the sunlight, bathed face and hands in a brook near by, and came to a -village before a soul was stirring. So I sat under a thrift-cushioned, -thorn-crowned wall in a meadow, and once more drowsed off and fell -asleep. When again I awoke, it was ten o’clock. The church clock in its -tower knelled out the strokes, and I went into an inn for food. - -“A corpulent, blonde woman, kindly and hospitable, with a face -comfortably resembling her own sow’s, that yuffed and nosed in at the -open door as I sat on my stool, served me with what I called for. I -described—not without some vanishing shame, as if it were a treachery—my -farm, its whereabouts. - -“Her small blue eyes ‘pigged’ at me with a fleeting expression which I -failed to translate. The name of the farm, it appeared, was Trevarras. -‘And did you see any of the Creatures?’ she asked me in a voice not -entirely her own. ‘The Creatures’? I sat back for an instant and stared -at her; then realised that Creature was the name of my host, and Maria -and Christus (though here her dialect may have deceived me) the names of -my two gardeners. She spun an absurd story, so far as I could tack it -together and make it coherent. Superstitious stuff about this man who -had wandered in upon the shocked and curious inhabitants of the district -and made his home at Trevarras—a stranger and pilgrim, a ‘foreigner,’ it -seemed, of few words, dubious manners, and both uninformative. - -“Then there was something (she placed her two fat hands, one of them -wedding-ringed, on the zinc of the bar-counter, and peered over at me, -as if I were a delectable ‘wash’), then there was something about a -woman ‘from the sea.’ In a ‘blue gown,’ and either dumb, inarticulate, -or mistress of only a foreign tongue. She must have lived in sin, -moreover, those pig’s eyes seemed to yearn, since the children were -‘simple,’ ‘naturals’—as God intends in such matters. It was useless. -One’s stomach may sometimes reject the cold sanative aerated water of -‘the next morning,’ and my ridiculous intoxication had left me dry but -not yet quite sober. - -“Anyhow, this she told me, that my blue woman, as fair as flax, had died -and was buried in the neighbouring churchyard (the nearest to, though -miles distant from Trevarras). She repeatedly assured me, as if I might -otherwise doubt so sophisticated a fact, that I should find her grave -there, her ‘stone.’ - -“So indeed I did—far away from the elect, and in a shade-ridden -north-west corner of the sleepy, cropless acre: a slab, scarcely -rounded, of granite, with but a name bitten out of the dark, rough -surface, ‘_Femina Creature_.’” - - - - -THE TAIPAN - -By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM - - From On a Chinese Screen, by W. Somerset Maugham. - Copyright, 1922, by George H. Doran Company. - - -No one knew better than he that he was an important person. He was -number one in not the least important branch of the most important -English firm in China. He had worked his way up through solid ability, -and he looked back with a faint smile at the callow clerk who had come -out to China thirty years before. When he remembered the modest home he -had come from, a little red house in a long row of little red houses, in -Barnes, a suburb which, aiming desperately at the genteel, achieves only -a sordid melancholy, and compared it with the magnificent stone mansion, -with its wide verandahs and spacious rooms, which was at once the office -of the company and his own residence, he chuckled with satisfaction. He -had come a long way since then. He thought of the high tea to which he -sat down when he came home from school (he was at St. Paul’s), with his -father and mother and his two sisters, a slice of cold meat, a great -deal of bread and butter and plenty of milk in his tea, everybody -helping himself, and then he thought of the state in which now he ate -his evening meal. He always dressed, and whether he was alone or not he -expected the three boys to wait at table. His number one boy knew -exactly what he liked, and he never had to bother himself with the -details of housekeeping; but he always had a set dinner with soup and -fish, entree, roast, sweet and savoury, so that if he wanted to ask -anyone in at the last moment he could. He liked his food, and he did not -see why when he was alone he should have less good a dinner than when he -had a guest. - -He had indeed gone far. That was why he did not care to go home now; he -had not been to England for ten years, and he took his leave in Japan or -Vancouver where he was sure of meeting old friends from the China coast. -He knew no one at home. His sisters had married in their own station, -their husbands were clerks and their sons were clerks; there was nothing -between him and them; they bored him. He satisfied the claims of -relationship by sending them every Christmas a piece of fine silk, some -elaborate embroidery, or a case of tea. He was not a mean man, and as -long as his mother lived he had made her an allowance. But when the time -came for him to retire he had no intention of going back to England, he -had seen too many men do that and he knew how often it was a failure; he -meant to take a house near the race-course in Shanghai: what with bridge -and his ponies and gold he expected to get through the rest of his life -very comfortably. But he had a good many years before he need think of -retiring. In another five or six Higgins would be going home, and then -he would take charge of the head office in Shanghai. Meanwhile he was -very happy where he was; he could save money, which you couldn’t do in -Shanghai, and have a good time into the bargain. This place had another -advantage over Shanghai: he was the most prominent man in the community -and what he said went. Even the consul took care to keep on the right -side of him. Once a consul and he had been at loggerheads, and it was -not he who had gone to the wall. The taipan thrust out his jaw -pugnaciously as he thought of the incident. - -But he smiled, for he felt in an excellent humour. He was walking back -to his office from a capital luncheon at the Hong-Kong and Shanghai -Bank. They did you very well there. The food was first rate and there -was plenty of liquor. He had started with a couple of cocktails, then he -had had some excellent sauterne, and he had finished up with two glasses -of port and some fine old brandy. He felt good. And when he left he did -a thing that was rare with him: he walked. His bearers with his chair -kept a few paces behind him in case he felt inclined to slip into it, -but he enjoyed stretching his legs. He did not get enough exercise these -days. Now that he was too heavy to ride, it was difficult to get -exercise. But if he was too heavy to ride he could still keep ponies, -and as he strolled along in the balmy air he thought of the spring -meeting. He had a couple of griffins that he had hopes of and one of the -lads in his office had turned out a fine jockey (he must see they didn’t -sneak him away, old Higgins in Shanghai would give a pot of money to get -him over there) and he ought to pull off two or three races. He -flattered himself that he had the finest stable in the city. He pouted -his broad chest like a pigeon. It was a beautiful day, and it was good -to be alive. - -He paused as he came to the cemetery. It stood there, neat and orderly, -as an evident sign of the community’s opulence. He never passed the -cemetery without a little glow of pride. He was pleased to be an -Englishman. For the cemetery stood in a place, valueless when it was -chosen, which with the increase of the city’s affluence was now worth a -great deal of money. It had been suggested that the graves should be -moved to another spot and the land sold for building, but the feeling of -the community was against it. It gave the taipan a sense of satisfaction -to think that their dead rested on the most valuable site on the island. -It showed that there were things they cared for more than money. Money -be blowed! When it came to “the things that mattered” (this was a -favourite phrase with the taipan), well, one remembered that money -wasn’t everything. - -And now he thought he would take a stroll through. He looked at the -graves. They were neatly kept, and the pathways were free from weeds. -There was a look of prosperity. And as he sauntered along he read the -names on the tombstones. Here were three side by side; the captain, the -first mate, and the second mate of the barque _Mary Baxter_, who had all -perished together in the typhoon of 1908. He remembered it well. There -was a little group of two missionaries, their wives and children, who -had been massacred during the Boxer troubles. Shocking thing that had -been! Not that he took much stock in missionaries; but, hang it all, one -couldn’t have these damned Chinese massacring them. Then he came to a -cross with a name on it he knew. Good chap, Edward Mulock, but he -couldn’t stand his liquor, drank himself to death, poor devil, at -twenty-five: the taipan had known a lot of them do that; there were -several more neat crosses with a man’s name on them and the age, -twenty-five, twenty-six, or twenty-seven; it was always the same story; -they had come out to China: they had never seen so much money before, -they were good fellows, and they wanted to drink with the rest: they -couldn’t stand it, and there they were in the cemetery. You had to have -a strong head and a fine constitution to drink drink for drink on the -China coast. Of course it was very sad, but the taipan could hardly help -a smile when he thought how many of those young fellows he had drunk -underground. And there was a death that had been useful, a fellow in his -own firm, senior to him and a clever chap too: if that fellow had lived -he might not have been taipan now. Truly the ways of fate were -inscrutable. Ah, and here was little Mrs. Turner, Violet Turner, she had -been a pretty little thing, he had had quite an affair with her; he had -been devilish cut up when she died. He looked at her age on the -tombstone. She’d be no chicken if she were alive now. And as he thought -of all those dead people, a sense of satisfaction spread through him. He -had beaten them all. They were dead, and he was alive, and by George -he’d scored them off. His eyes collected in one picture all those -crowded graves and he smiled scornfully. He very nearly rubbed his -hands. - -“No one ever thought I was a fool,” he muttered. - -He had a feeling of good-natured contempt for the gibbering dead. Then, -as he strolled along, he came suddenly upon two coolies digging a grave. -He was astonished, for he had not heard that anyone in the community was -dead. - -“Who the devil’s that for?” he said aloud. - -The coolies did not even look at him, they went on with their work, -standing in the grave, deep down, and they shovelled up heavy clods of -earth. Though he had been so long in China he knew no Chinese, in his -day it was not thought necessary to learn the damned language, and he -asked the coolies in English whose grave they were digging. They did not -understand. They answered him in Chinese and he cursed them for ignorant -fools. He knew that Mrs. Broome’s child was ailing, and it might have -died, but he would certainly have heard of it, and besides that wasn’t a -child’s grave, it was a man’s and a big man’s too. It was uncanny. He -wished he hadn’t gone into that cemetery; he hurried out and stepped -into his chair. His good humour had all gone and there was an uneasy -frown on his face. The moment he got back to his office he called to his -number two: - -“I say, Peters, who’s dead, d’you know?” - -But Peters knew nothing. The taipan was puzzled. He called one of the -native clerks and sent him to the cemetery to ask the coolies. He began -to sign his letters. The clerk came back and said the coolies had gone -and there was no one to ask. The taipan began to feel vaguely annoyed: -he did not like things to happen of which he knew nothing. His own boy -would know; his boy always knew everything, and he sent for him; but the -boy had heard of no death in the community. - -“I knew no one was dead,” said the taipan irritably. “But what’s the -grave for?” - -He told the boy to go to the overseer of the cemetery and find out what -the devil he had dug a grave for when no one was dead. - -“Let me have a whisky and soda before you go,” he added, as the boy was -leaving the room. - -He did not know why the sight of the grave had made him uncomfortable. -But he tried to put it out of his mind. He felt better when he had drunk -the whisky, and he finished his work. He went upstairs and turned over -the pages of _Punch_. In a few minutes he would go to the club and play -a rubber or two of bridge before dinner. But it would ease his mind to -hear what his boy had to say, and he waited for his return. In a little -while the boy came back, and he brought the overseer with him. - -“What are you having a grave dug for?” he asked the overseer point -blank. “Nobody’s dead.” - -“I no dig glave,” said the man. - -“What the devil do you mean by that? There were two coolies digging a -grave this afternoon.” - -The two Chinese looked at one another. Then the boy said they had been -to the cemetery together. There was no new grave there. - -The taipan only just stopped himself from speaking. - -“But damn it all, I saw it myself,” were the words on the tip of his -tongue. - -But he did not say them. He grew very red as he choked them down. The -two Chinese looked at him with their steady eyes. For a moment his -breath failed him. - -“All right. Get out,” he gasped. - -But as soon as they were gone he shouted for the boy again, and when he -came, maddeningly impassive, he told him to bring some whisky. He rubbed -his sweating face with a handkerchief. His hand trembled when he lifted -the glass to his lips. They could say what they liked, but he had seen -the grave. Why, he could hear still the dull thud as the coolies threw -the spadefuls of earth on the ground above them. What did it mean? He -could feel his heart beating. He felt strangely ill at ease. But he -pulled himself together. It was all nonsense. If there was no grave -there it must have been an hallucination. The best thing he could do was -to go to the club, and if he ran across the doctor, he would ask him to -give him a look over. - -Everyone in the club looked just the same as ever. He did not know why -he should have expected them to look different. It was a comfort. These -men, living for many years with one another, lives that were -methodically regulated, had acquired a number of little -idiosyncrasies—one of them hummed incessantly while he played bridge, -another insisted on drinking beer through a straw—and these tricks which -had so often irritated the taipan now gave him a sense of security. He -needed it, for he could not get out of his head that strange sight he -had seen; he played bridge very badly; his partner was censorious, and -the taipan lost his temper. He thought the men were looking at him -oddly. He wondered what they saw in him that was unaccustomed. - -Suddenly he felt he could not bear to stay in the club any longer. As he -went out he saw the doctor reading _The Times_ in the reading-room, but -he could not bring himself to speak to him. He wanted to see for himself -whether that grave was really there, and, stepping into his chair he -told his bearers to take him to the cemetery. You couldn’t have an -hallucination twice, could you? And besides, he would take the overseer -in with him, and if the grave was not there, he wouldn’t see it, and if -it was he’d give the overseer the soundest thrashing he’d ever had. But -the overseer was nowhere to be found. He had gone out and taken the keys -with him. When the taipan found he could not get into the cemetery, he -felt suddenly exhausted. He got back into his chair and told his bearers -to take him home. He would lie down for half an hour before dinner. He -was tired out. That was it. He had heard that people had hallucinations -when they were tired. When his boy came in to put out his clothes for -dinner, it was only by an effort of will that he got up. He had a strong -inclination not to dress that evening, but he resisted it: he made it a -rule to dress, he had dressed every evening for twenty years, and it -would never do to break his rule. But he ordered a bottle of champagne -with his dinner, and that made him feel more comfortable. Afterwards he -told the boy to bring him the best brandy. When he had drunk a couple of -glasses of this he felt himself again. Hallucinations be damned! He went -to the billiard room and practised a few difficult shots. There could -not be much the matter with him when his eye was so sure. When he went -to bed he sank immediately into a sound sleep. - -But suddenly he awoke. He had dreamed of that open grave and the coolies -digging leisurely. He was sure he had seen them. It was absurd to say it -was an hallucination when he had seen them with his own eyes. Then he -heard the rattle of the night watchman going his rounds. It broke upon -the stillness of the night so harshly that it made him jump out of his -skin. And then terror seized him. He felt a horror of the winding -multitudinous streets of the Chinese city, and there was something -ghastly and terrible in the convoluted roofs of the temples with their -devils grimacing and tortured. He loathed the smells that assaulted his -nostrils. And the people. Those myriads of blue-clad coolies, and the -beggars in their filthy rags, and the merchants and the magistrates, -sleek, smiling, and inscrutable, in their long black gowns. They seemed -to press upon him with menace. He hated the country. China! Why had he -ever come? He was panic-stricken now. He must get out. He would not stay -another year, another month. What did he care about Shanghai? - -“Oh, my God!” he cried, “if I were only safely back in England!” - -He wanted to go home. If he had to die, he wanted to die in England. He -could not bear to be buried among all these yellow men, with their -slanting eyes and their grinning faces. He wanted to be buried at home, -not in that grave he had seen that day. He could never rest there. -Never. What did it matter what people thought? Let them think what they -liked. The only thing that mattered was to get away while he had the -chance. - -He got out of bed and wrote to the head of the firm and said he had -discovered he was dangerously ill. He must be replaced. He could not -stay longer than was absolutely necessary. He must go home at once. - -They found the letter in the morning clenched in the taipan’s hand. He -had slipped down between the desk and the chair. He was stone dead. - - THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and -Three Authors, by Various - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY-THREE STORIES, TWENTY-THREE AUTHORS *** - -***** This file should be named 62347-0.txt or 62347-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/3/4/62347/ - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three Authors - -Author: Various - -Editor: Ernest Rhys - Catherine Amy Dawson-Scott - -Release Date: June 8, 2020 [EBook #62347] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY-THREE STORIES, TWENTY-THREE AUTHORS *** - - - - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<h1>Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three Authors</h1> -<div class='section'></div> - -<div class='tac'> - <div style="font-size:1.4em">TWENTY-THREE STORIES</div> - <div style="font-size:1.2em">BY</div> - <div style="font-size:1.4em">TWENTY AND THREE AUTHORS</div> - <div style="margin-top:2em">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</div> - <div style="font-size:0.9em">NEW YORK MCMXXIV</div> -</div> - -<div class='section'></div> - -<div class='tac'> - <div style="font-size:smaller">COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY</div> - <div style="font-size:smaller">D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</div> - <div style="font-size:small; margin-top:1.5em"> - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - </div> -</div> - -<div class='section'></div> - -<table class='toc tcenter' summary="Contents"> -<thead> -<tr> -<th colspan='2' style='font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:1em;'>CONTENTS</th> -</tr> -</thead> -<tbody> -<tr><td><a href='#s1'>Kerfol</a></td><td>Edith Wharton</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s2'>The Chink and the Child</a></td><td>Thomas Burke</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s3'>The Nomad</a></td><td>Robert Hichens</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s4'>The Crucifixion of The Outcast</a></td><td>W. B. Yeats</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s5'>The Drums of Kairwan</a></td><td>The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s6'>A Life—A Bowl of Rice</a></td><td>L. De Bra</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s7'>Hodge</a></td><td>Elinor Mordaunt</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s8'>Hatteras</a></td><td>A. W. Mason</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s9'>The Ransom</a></td><td>Cutliffe Hyne</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s10'>The Other Twin</a></td><td>Edwin Pugh</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s11'>The Narrow Way</a></td><td>R. Ellis Roberts</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s12'>Davy Jones’s Gift</a></td><td>John Masefield</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s13'>The Call of the Hand</a></td><td>Louis Golding</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s14'>The Sentimental Mortgage</a></td><td>Arthur Lynch</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s15'>Captain Sharkey</a></td><td>A. Conan Doyle</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s16'>Violence</a></td><td>Algernon Blackwood</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s17'>The Reward of Enterprise</a></td><td>Ward Muir</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s18'>Grear’s Dam</a></td><td>Morley Roberts</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s19'>The King of Maleka</a></td><td>H. De Vere Stacpoole</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s20'>Alleluia</a></td><td>T. F. Powys</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s21'>The Monkey’s Paw</a></td><td>W. W. Jacobs</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s22'>The Creatures</a></td><td>Walter de la Mare</td></tr> -<tr><td><a href='#s23'>The Taipan</a></td><td>W. Somerset Maugham</td></tr> -</tbody> -</table> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Kerfol' id='s1'>KERFOL</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By EDITH WHARTON</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>Xingu and Other Stories</i>, by Edith Wharton. Copyright, 1917, -by Charles Scribner’s Sons.</p> -<h3>1</h3> -<p>“You ought to buy it,” said my host; “it’s just the place for a -solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to -own the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead -broke, and it’s going for a song—you ought to buy it.”</p> -<p>It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend -Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under my unsociable -exterior I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity) that I took -his hint one autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friend was motoring -over to Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at a cross-road -on a heath, and said: “First turn to the right and second to the left. -Then straight ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, -don’t ask your way. They don’t understand French, and they would pretend -they did and mix you up. I’ll be back for you here by sunset—and don’t -forget the tombs in the chapel.”</p> -<p>I followed Lanrivain’s directions with the hesitation occasioned by the -usual difficulty of remembering whether he had said the first turn to -the right and second to the left, or the contrary. If I had met a -peasant I should certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray; -but I had the desert landscape to myself, and so stumbled on the right -turn and walked across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was so -unlike any other avenue I have ever seen that I instantly knew it must -be <i>the</i> avenue. The grey-trunked trees sprang up straight to a great -height and then interwove their pale-grey branches in a long tunnel -through which the autumn light fell faintly. I know most trees by name, -but I haven’t to this day been able to decide what those trees were. -They had the tall curve of elms, the tenuity of poplars, the ashen -colour of olives under a rainy sky; and they stretched ahead of me for -half a mile or more without a break in their arch. If ever I saw an -avenue that unmistakably led to something, it was the avenue at Kerfol. -My heart beat a little as I began to walk down it.</p> -<p>Presently the trees ended and I came to a fortified gate in a long wall. -Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with other grey -avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed -with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild -shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been -replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood -for a long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and -letting the influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: “If I wait -long enough, the guardian will turn up and show me the tombs—” and I -rather hoped he wouldn’t turn up too soon.</p> -<p>I sat down on a stone and lit a cigarette. As soon as I had done it, it -struck me as a puerile and portentous thing to do, with that great blind -house looking down at me, and all the empty avenues converging on me. It -may have been the depth of the silence that made me so conscious of my -gesture. The squeak of my match sounded as loud as the scraping of a -brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the -grass. But there was more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of -littleness, of futile bravado, in sitting there puffing my -cigarette-smoke into the face of such a past.</p> -<p>I knew nothing of the history of Kerfol—I was new to Brittany, and -Lanrivain had never mentioned the name to me till the day before—but one -couldn’t as much as glance at that pile without feeling in it a long -accumulation of history. What kind of history I was not prepared to -guess: perhaps only that sheer weight of many associated lives and -deaths which gives a majesty to all old houses. But the aspect of Kerfol -suggested something more—a perspective of stern and cruel memories -stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur of darkness.</p> -<p>Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken with the -present. As it stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables to the -sky, it might have been its own funeral monument. “Tombs in the chapel? -The whole place is a tomb!” I reflected. I hoped more and more that the -guardian would not come. The details of the place, however striking, -would seem trivial compared with its collective impressiveness; and I -wanted only to sit there and be penetrated by the weight of its silence.</p> -<p>“It’s the very place for you!” Lanrivain had said; and I was overcome by -the almost blasphemous frivolity of suggesting to any living being that -Kerfol was the place for him. “Is it possible that any one could <i>not</i> -see—?” I wondered. I did not finish the thought: what I meant was -undefinable. I stood up and wandered toward the gate. I was beginning to -want to know more; not to <i>see</i> more—I was by now so sure it was not a -question of seeing—but to feel more: feel all the place had to -communicate. “But to get in one will have to rout out the keeper,” I -thought reluctantly, and hesitated. Finally I crossed the bridge and -tried the iron gate. It yielded, and I walked through the tunnel formed -by the thickness of the <i>chemin de ronde</i>. At the farther end, a wooden -barricade had been laid across the entrance, and beyond it was a court -enclosed in noble architecture. The main building faced me; and I now -saw that one half was a mere ruined front, with gaping windows through -which the wild growths of the moat and the trees of the park were -visible. The rest of the house was still in its robust beauty. One end -abutted on the round tower, the other on the small traceried chapel, and -in an angle of the building stood a graceful well-head crowned with -mossy urns. A few roses grew against the walls, and on an upper -window-sill I remember noticing a pot of fuchsias.</p> -<p>My sense of the pressure of the invisible began to yield to my -architectural interest. The building was so fine that I felt a desire to -explore it for its own sake. I looked about the court, wondering in -which corner the guardian lodged. Then I pushed open the barrier and -went in. As I did so, a dog barred my way. He was such a remarkably -beautiful little dog that for a moment he made me forget the splendid -place he was defending. I was not sure of his breed at the time, but -have since learned that it was Chinese, and that he was of a rare -variety called the “Sleeve-dog.” He was very small and golden brown, -with large brown eyes and a ruffled throat: he looked like a large tawny -chrysanthemum. I said to myself: “These little beasts always snap and -scream, and somebody will be out in a minute.”</p> -<p>The little animal stood before me, forbidding, almost menacing; there -was anger in his large brown eyes. But he made no sound, he came no -nearer. Instead, as I advanced, he gradually fell back, and I noticed -that another dog, a vague rough brindled thing, had limped up on a lame -leg. “There’ll be a hubbub now,” I thought; for at the same moment a -third dog, a long-haired white mongrel, slipped out of a doorway and -joined the others. All three stood looking at me with grave eyes; but -not a sound came from them. As I advanced they continued to fall back on -muffled paws, still watching me. “At a given point, they’ll all charge -at my ankles: it’s one of the jokes that dogs who live together put on -one,” I thought. I was not alarmed, for they were neither large nor -formidable. But they let me wander about the court as I pleased, -following me at a little distance—always the same distance—and always -keeping their eyes on me. Presently I looked across at the ruined -façade, and saw that in one of its empty window-frames another dog -stood: a white pointer with one brown ear. He was an old grave dog, much -more experienced than the others; and he seemed to be observing me with -a deeper intentness.</p> -<p>“I’ll hear from <i>him</i>,” I said to myself; but he stood in the -window-frame, against the trees of the park, and continued to watch me -without moving. I stared back at him for a time, to see if the sense -that he was being watched would not rouse him. Half the width of the -court lay between us, and we gazed at each other silently across it. But -he did not stir, and at last I turned away. Behind me I found the rest -of the pack, with a newcomer added: a small black greyhound with pale -agate-coloured eyes. He was shivering a little, and his expression was -more timid than that of the others. I noticed that he kept a little -behind them. And still there was not a sound.</p> -<p>I stood there for fully five minutes, the circle about me—waiting, as -they seemed to be waiting. At last I went up to the little golden-brown -dog and stooped to pat him. As I did so, I heard myself give a nervous -laugh. The little dog did not start, or growl, or take his eyes from -me—he simply slipped back about a yard, and then paused and continued to -look at me. “Oh, hang it!” I exclaimed, and walked across the court -toward the well.</p> -<p>As I advanced, the dogs separated and slid away into different corners -of the court. I examined the urns on the well, tried a locked door or -two, and looked up and down the dumb façade: then I faced about toward -the chapel. When I turned I perceived that all the dogs had disappeared -except the old pointer, who still watched me from the window. It was -rather a relief to be rid of that cloud of witnesses; and I began to -look about me for a way to the back of the house. “Perhaps there’ll be -somebody in the garden,” I thought. I found a way across the moat, -scrambled over a wall smothered in brambles, and got into the garden. A -few lean hydrangeas and geraniums pined in the flower-beds, and the -ancient house looked down on them indifferently. Its garden side was -plainer and severer than the other: the long granite front, with its few -windows and steep roof, looked like a fortress-prison. I walked around -the farther wing, went up some disjointed steps, and entered the deep -twilight of a narrow and incredibly old box-walk. The walk was just wide -enough for one person to slip through, and its branches met overhead. It -was like the ghost of a box-walk, its lustrous green all turning to the -shadowy greyness of the avenues. I walked on and on, the branches -hitting me in the face and springing back with a dry rattle; and at -length I came out on the grassy top of the <i>chemin de ronde</i>. I walked -along it to the gate-tower, looking down into the court, which was just -below me. Not a human being was in sight; and neither were the dogs. I -found a flight of steps in the thickness of the wall and went down them; -and when I emerged again into the court, there stood the circle of dogs, -the golden-brown one a little ahead of the others, the black greyhound -shivering in the rear.</p> -<p>“Oh, hang it—you uncomfortable beasts, you!” I exclaimed, my voice -startling me with a sudden echo. The dogs stood motionless, watching me. -I knew by this time that they would not try to prevent my approaching -the house, and the knowledge left me free to examine them. I had a -feeling that they must be horribly cowed to be so silent and inert. Yet -they did not look hungry or ill-treated. Their coats were smooth and -they were not thin, except the shivering greyhound. It was more as if -they had lived a long time with people who never spoke to them or looked -at them: as though the silence of the place had gradually benumbed their -busy, inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human -lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten -animals. I should have liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them -into a game or a scamper; but the longer I looked into their fixed and -weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became. With the windows of -that house looking down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? -The dogs knew better: they knew what the house would tolerate and what -it would not. I even fancied that they knew what was passing through my -mind, and pitied me for my frivolity. But even that feeling probably -reached them through a thick fog of listlessness. I had an idea that -their distance from me was as nothing to my remoteness from them. The -impression they produced was that of having in common one memory so deep -and dark that nothing that had happened since was worth either a growl -or a wag.</p> -<p>“I say,” I broke out abruptly, addressing myself to the dumb circle, “do -you know what you look like, the whole lot of you? You look as if you’d -seen a ghost—that’s how you look. I wonder if there <i>is</i> a ghost here, -and nobody but you left for it to appear to?” The dogs continued to gaze -at me without moving....</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>It was dark when I saw Lanrivain’s motor lamps at the cross-roads—and I -wasn’t exactly sorry to see them. I had the sense of having escaped from -the loneliest place in the whole world, and of not liking loneliness—to -that degree—as much as I had imagined I should. My friend had brought -his solicitor back from Quimper for the night, and seated beside a fat -and affable stranger I felt no inclination to talk of Kerfol....</p> -<p>But that evening, when Lanrivain and the solicitor were closeted in the -study, Madame de Lanrivain began to question me in the drawing-room.</p> -<p>“Well—are you going to buy Kerfol?” she asked, tilting up her gay chin -from her embroidery.</p> -<p>“I haven’t decided yet. The fact is, I couldn’t get into the house,” I -said, as if I had simply postponed my decision, and meant to go back for -another look.</p> -<p>“You couldn’t get in? Why, what happened? The family are mad to sell the -place, and the old guardian has orders——”</p> -<p>“Very likely. But the old guardian wasn’t there.”</p> -<p>“What a pity. He must have gone to market. But his daughter——?”</p> -<p>“There was nobody about. At least I saw no one.”</p> -<p>“How extraordinary! Literally nobody?”</p> -<p>“Nobody but a lot of dogs—a whole pack of them—who seemed to have the -place to themselves.”</p> -<p>Madame de Lanrivain let the embroidery slip to her knees, and folded her -hands on it. For several minutes she looked at me thoughtfully.</p> -<p>“A pack of dogs—you saw them?”</p> -<p>“Saw them? I saw nothing else!”</p> -<p>“How many?” She dropped her voice a little. “I’ve always wondered——”</p> -<p>I looked at her with surprise: I had supposed the place to be familiar -to her. “Have you never been to Kerfol?” I asked.</p> -<p>“Oh, yes; often. But never on that day.”</p> -<p>“What day?”</p> -<p>“I’d quite forgotten, and so had Hervé, I’m sure. If we’d remembered, we -never should have sent you to-day—but then, after all, one doesn’t half -believe that sort of thing, does one?”</p> -<p>“What sort of thing?” I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice to the -level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: “I <i>knew</i> there was -something....”</p> -<p>Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuring smile. -“Didn’t Hervé tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of his was mixed -up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; and some of -them are rather unpleasant.”</p> -<p>“Yes—but those dogs?”</p> -<p>“Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasants say -there’s one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; and that -day the keeper and his daughter go off to Morlaix and get drunk. The -women in Brittany drink dreadfully.” She stooped to match a silk; then -she lifted her charming, inquisitive Parisian face. “Did you <i>really</i> -see a lot of dogs? There isn’t one at Kerfol,” she said.</p> -<h3>2</h3> -<p>Lanrivain, the next day, hunted out a shabby calf volume from the back -of an upper shelf of his library.</p> -<p>“Yes—here it is. What does it call itself? <i>A History of the Assizes of -the Duchy of Brittany.</i> <i>Quimper</i>, 1702. The book was written about a -hundred years later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe the account is -transcribed pretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it’s -queer reading. And there’s a Hervé de Lanrivain mixed up in it—not -exactly my style, as you’ll see. But then he’s only a collateral. Here, -take the book up to bed with you. I don’t exactly remember the details; -but after you’ve read it, I’ll bet anything you’ll leave your light -burning all night!”</p> -<p>I left my light burning all night, as he had predicted; but it was -chiefly because, till near dawn, I was absorbed in my reading. The -account of the trial of Anne de Cornault, wife of the lord of Kerfol, -was long and closely printed. It was, as my friend had said, probably an -almost literal transcription of what took place in the court-room; and -the trial lasted nearly a month. Besides, the type of the book was very -bad....</p> -<p>At first I thought of translating the old record. But it is full of -wearisome repetitions, and the main lines of the story are forever -straying off into side issues. So I have tried to disentangle it, and -give it here in a simpler form. At times, however, I have reverted to -the text because no other words could have conveyed so exactly the sense -of what I felt at Kerfol; and nowhere have I added anything of my own.</p> -<h3>3</h3> -<p>It was in the year 16— that Yves de Cornault, lord of the domain of -Kerfol, went to the <i>pardon</i> of Locronan to perform his religious -duties. He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his sixty-second year, -but hale and sturdy, a great horseman and hunter and a pious man. So all -his neighbours attested. In appearance he was short and broad, with a -swarthy face, legs slightly bowed from the saddle, a hanging nose and -broad hands with black hairs on them. He had married young and lost his -wife and son soon after, and since then had lived alone at Kerfol. Twice -a year he went to Morlaix, where he had a handsome house by the river, -and spent a week or ten days there; and occasionally he rode to Rennes -on business. Witnesses were found to declare that during these absences -he led a life different from the one he was known to lead at Kerfol, -where he busied himself with his estate, attended mass daily, and found -his only amusement in hunting the wild boar and water-fowl. But these -rumours are not particularly relevant, and it is certain that among -people of his own class in the neighbourhood he passed for a stern and -even austere man, observant of his religious obligations, and keeping -strictly to himself. There was no talk of any familiarity with the women -on his estate, though at that time the nobility were very free with -their peasants. Some people said he had never looked at a woman since -his wife’s death; but such things are hard to prove, and the evidence on -this point was not worth much.</p> -<p>Well, in his sixty-second year, Yves de Cornault went to the <i>pardon</i> at -Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had ridden over -pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name was Anne -de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much less great -and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father had -squandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a peasant in his -little granite manor on the moors.... I have said I would add nothing of -my own to this bald statement of a strange case; but I must interrupt -myself here to describe the young lady who rode up to the lych-gate of -Locronan at the very moment when the Baron de Cornault was also -dismounting there. I take my description from a faded drawing in red -crayon, sober and truthful enough to be by a late pupil of the Clouets, -which hangs in Lanrivain’s study, and is said to be a portrait of Anne -de Barrigan. It is unsigned and has no mark of identity but the initials -A. B., and the date 16—, the year after her marriage. It represents a -young woman with a small oval face, almost pointed, yet wide enough for -a full mouth with a tender depression at the corners. The nose is small, -and the eyebrows are set rather high, far apart, and as lightly -pencilled as the eyebrows in a Chinese painting. The forehead is high -and serious, and the hair, which one feels to be fine and thick and -fair, is drawn off it and lies close like a cap. The eyes are neither -large nor small, hazel probably, with a look at once shy and steady. A -pair of beautiful long hands are crossed below the lady’s breast....</p> -<p>The chaplain of Kerfol, and other witnesses, averred that when the Baron -came back from Locronan he jumped from his horse, ordered another to be -instantly saddled, called to a young page to come with him, and rode -away that same evening to the south. His steward followed the next -morning with coffers laden on a pair of pack mules. The following week -Yves de Cornault rode back to Kerfol, sent for his vassals and tenants, -and told them he was to be married at All Saints to Anne de Barrigan of -Douarnenez. And on All Saints’ Day the marriage took place.</p> -<p>As to the next few years, the evidence on both sides seems to show that -they passed happily for the couple. No one was found to say that Yves de -Cornault had been unkind to his wife, and it was plain to all that he -was content with his bargain. Indeed, it was admitted by the chaplain -and other witnesses for the prosecution that the young lady had a -softening influence on her husband, and that he became less exacting -with his tenants, less harsh to peasants and dependents, and less -subject to the fits of gloomy silence which had darkened his widowhood. -As to his wife, the only grievance her champions could call up in her -behalf was that Kerfol was a lonely place, and that when her husband was -away on business at Rennes or Morlaix—whither she was never taken—she -was not allowed so much as to walk in the park unaccompanied. But no one -asserted that she was unhappy, though one servant-woman said she had -surprised her crying, and had heard her say that she was a woman -accursed to have no child, and nothing in life to call her own. But that -was a natural enough feeling in a wife attached to her husband; and -certainly it must have been a great grief to Yves de Cornault that she -bore no son. Yet he never made her feel her childlessness as a -reproach—she admits this in her evidence—but seemed to try to make her -forget it by showering gifts and favours on her. Rich though he was, he -had never been open-handed; but nothing was too fine for his wife, in -the way of silks or gems or linen, or whatever else she fancied. Every -wandering merchant was welcome at Kerfol, and when the master was called -away he never came back without bringing his wife a handsome -present—something curious and particular—from Morlaix or Rennes or -Quimper. One of the waiting-women gave, in cross-examination, an -interesting list of one year’s gifts, which I copy. From Morlaix, a -carved ivory junk, with Chinamen at the oars, that a strange sailor had -brought back as a votive offering for Notre Dame de la Clarté, above -Ploumanac’h; from Quimper, an embroidered gown, worked by the nuns of -the Assumption; from Rennes, a silver rose that opened and showed an -amber Virgin with a crown of garnets; from Morlaix, again, a length of -Damascus velvet shot with gold, bought of a Jew from Syria; and for -Michaelmas that same year, from Rennes, a necklet or bracelet of round -stones—emeralds and pearls and rubies—strung like beads on a fine gold -chain. This was the present that pleased the lady best, the woman said. -Later on, as it happened, it was produced at the trial, and appears to -have struck the Judges and the public as a curious and valuable jewel.</p> -<p>The very same winter, the Baron absented himself again, this time as far -as Bordeaux, and on his return he brought his wife something even odder -and prettier than the bracelet. It was a winter evening when he rode up -to Kerfol, and, walking into the hall, found her sitting by the hearth, -her chin on her hand, looking into the fire. He carried a velvet box in -his hand and, setting it down, lifted the lid and let out a little -golden-brown dog.</p> -<p>Anne de Cornault exclaimed with pleasure as the little creature bounded -toward her. “Oh, it looks like a bird or a butterfly!” she cried as she -picked it up; and the dog put its paws on her shoulders and looked at -her with eyes “like a Christian’s.” After that she would never have it -out of her sight, and petted and talked to it as if it had been a -child—as indeed it was the nearest thing to a child she was to know. -Yves de Cornault was much pleased with his purchase. The dog had been -brought to him by a sailor from an East Indian merchantman, and the -sailor had bought it of a pilgrim in a bazaar at Jaffa, who had stolen -it from a nobleman’s wife in China: a perfectly permissible thing to do, -since the pilgrim was a Christian and the nobleman a heathen doomed to -hell-fire. Yves de Cornault had paid a long price for the dog, for they -were beginning to be in demand at the French court, and the sailor knew -he had got hold of a good thing; but Anne’s pleasure was so great that, -to see her laugh and play with the little animal, her husband would -doubtless have given twice the sum.</p> -<p>So far all the evidence is at one, and the narrative plain sailing; but -now the steering becomes difficult. I will try to keep as nearly as -possible to Anne’s own statements; though toward the end, poor thing....</p> -<p>Well, to go back. The very year after the little brown dog was brought -to Kerfol, Yves de Cornault, one winter night, was found dead at the -head of a narrow flight of stairs leading down from his wife’s rooms to -a door opening on the court. It was his wife who found him and gave the -alarm, so distracted, poor wretch, with fear and horror—for his blood -was all over her—that at first the roused household could not make out -what she was saying, and thought she had suddenly gone mad. But there, -sure enough, at the top of the stairs lay her husband, stone dead, and -head foremost, the blood from his wounds dripping down to the step below -him. He had been dreadfully scratched and gashed about the face and -throat, as if with curious pointed weapons; and one of his legs had a -deep tear in it which had cut an artery, and probably caused his death. -But how did he come there, and who had murdered him?</p> -<p>His wife declared that she had been asleep in her bed, and hearing his -cry had rushed out to find him lying on the stairs; but this was -immediately questioned. In the first place, it was proved that from her -room she could not have heard the struggle on the stairs, owing to the -thickness of the walls and the length of the intervening passage; then -it was evident that she had not been in bed and asleep, since she was -dressed when she roused the house, and her bed had not been slept in. -Moreover, the door at the bottom of the stairs was ajar, and it was -noticed by the chaplain (an observant man) that the dress she wore was -stained with blood about the knees, and that there were traces of small -blood-stained hands low down on the staircase walls, so that it was -conjectured that she had really been at the postern-door when her -husband fell and, feeling her way up to him in the darkness on her hands -and knees, had been stained by his blood dripping down on her. Of course -it was argued on the other side that the blood-marks on her dress might -have been caused by her kneeling down by her husband when she rushed out -of her room; but there was the open door below, and the fact that the -finger-marks in the staircase all pointed upward.</p> -<p>The accused held to her statement for the first two days, in spite of -its improbability; but on the third day word was brought to her that -Hervé de Lanrivain, a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, had been -arrested for complicity in the crime. Two or three witnesses thereupon -came forward to say that it was known throughout the country that -Lanrivain had formerly been on good terms with the lady of Cornault; but -that he had been absent from Brittany for over a year, and people had -ceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statement -were not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherer -suspected of witchcraft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouring -parish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to say -anything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied with -its case, and would have liked to find more proof of Lanrivain’s -complicity than the statement of the herb-gatherer, who swore to having -seen him climbing the wall of the park on the night of the murder. One -way of patching out incomplete proofs in those days was to put some sort -of pressure, moral or physical, on the accused person. It is not clear -what pressure was put on Anne de Cornault; but on the third day, when -she was brought in court, she “appeared weak and wandering,” and after -being encouraged to collect herself and speak the truth, on her honour -and the wounds of her Blessed Redeemer, she confessed that she had in -fact gone down the stairs to speak with Hervé de Lanrivain (who denied -everything), and had been surprised there by the sound of her husband’s -fall. That was better; and the prosecution rubbed its hands with -satisfaction. The satisfaction increased when various dependents living -at Kerfol were induced to say—with apparent sincerity—that during the -year or two preceding his death their master had once more grown -uncertain and irascible, and subject to the fits of brooding silence -which his household had learned to dread before his second marriage. -This seemed to show that things had not been going well at Kerfol; -though no one could be found to say that there had been any signs of -open disagreement between husband and wife.</p> -<p>Anne de Cornault, when questioned as to her reason for going down at -night to open the door to Hervé de Lanrivain, made an answer which must -have sent a smile around the court. She said it was because she was -lonely and wanted to talk with the young man. Was this the only reason? -she was asked; and replied: “Yes, by the Cross over your Lordships’ -heads.” “But why at midnight?” the court asked. “Because I could see him -in no other way.” I can see the exchange of glances across the ermine -collars under the Crucifix.</p> -<p>Anne de Cornault, further questioned, said that her married life had -been extremely lonely: “desolate” was the word she used. It was true -that her husband seldom spoke harshly to her; but there were days when -he did not speak at all. It was true that he had never struck or -threatened her; but he kept her like a prisoner at Kerfol, and when he -rode away to Morlaix or Quimper or Rennes he set so close a watch on her -that she could not pick a flower in the garden without having a -waiting-woman at her heels. “I am no Queen, to need such honours,” she -once said to him; and he had answered that a man who has a treasure does -not leave the key in the lock when he goes out. “Then take me with you,” -she urged; but to this he said that towns were pernicious places, and -young wives better off at their firesides.</p> -<p>“But what did you want to say to Hervé de Lanrivain?” the court asked; -and she answered: “To ask him to take me away.”</p> -<p>“Ah—you confess that you went down to him with adulterous thoughts?”</p> -<p>“No.”</p> -<p>“Then why did you want him to take you away?”</p> -<p>“Because I was afraid for my life.”</p> -<p>“Of whom were you afraid?”</p> -<p>“Of my husband.”</p> -<p>“Why were you afraid of your husband?”</p> -<p>“Because he had strangled my little dog.”</p> -<p>Another smile must have passed around the courtroom: in days when any -nobleman had a right to hang his peasants—and most of them exercised -it—pinching a pet animal’s wind-pipe was nothing to make a fuss about.</p> -<p>At this point one of the Judges, who appears to have had a certain -sympathy for the accused, suggested that she should be allowed to -explain herself in her own way; and she thereupon made the following -statement.</p> -<p>The first years of her marriage had been lonely; but her husband had not -been unkind to her. If she had had a child she would not have been -unhappy; but the days were long, and it rained too much.</p> -<p>It was true that her husband, whenever he went away and left her, -brought her a handsome present on his return; but this did not make up -for the loneliness. At least nothing had, till he brought her the little -brown dog from the East: after that she was much less unhappy. Her -husband seemed pleased that she was so fond of the dog; he gave her -leave to put her jewelled bracelet around its neck, and keep it always -with her.</p> -<p>One day she had fallen asleep in her room, with the dog at her feet, as -his habit was. Her feet were bare and resting on his back. Suddenly she -was waked by her husband: he stood beside her, smiling not unkindly.</p> -<p>“You look like my great-grandmother, Juliane de Cornault, lying in the -chapel with her feet on a little dog,” he said.</p> -<p>The analogy sent a chill through her, but she laughed and answered: -“Well, when I am dead you must put me beside her, carved in marble, with -my dog at my feet.”</p> -<p>“Oho—we’ll wait and see,” he said, laughing also, but with his black -brows close together. “The dog is the emblem of fidelity.”</p> -<p>“And do you doubt my right to lie with mine at my feet?”</p> -<p>“When I’m in doubt I find out,” he answered. “I am an old man,” he -added, “and people say I make you lead a lonely life. But I swear you -shall have your monument if you earn it.”</p> -<p>“And I swear to be faithful,” she returned, “if only for the sake of -having my little dog at my feet.”</p> -<p>Not long afterward he went on business to the Quimper Assizes; and while -he was away his aunt, the widow of a great nobleman of the duchy, came -to spend a night at Kerfol on her way to the <i>pardon</i> of Ste. Barbe. She -was a woman of piety and consequence, and much respected by Yves de -Cornault, and when she proposed to Anne to go with her to Ste. Barbe, no -one could object, and even the chaplain declared himself in favour of -the pilgrimage. So Anne set out for Ste. Barbe, and there for the first -time she talked with Hervé de Lanrivain. He had come once or twice to -Kerfol with his father, but she had never before exchanged a dozen words -with him. They did not talk for more than five minutes now: it was under -the chestnuts, as the procession was coming out of the chapel. He said: -“I pity you,” and she was surprised, for she had not supposed that any -one thought her an object of pity. He added: “Call for me when you need -me,” and she smiled a little, but was glad afterward, and thought often -of the meeting.</p> -<p>She confessed to having seen him three times afterward: not more. How or -where she would not say—one had the impression that she feared to -implicate some one. Their meetings had been rare and brief; and at the -last he had told her that he was starting the next day for a foreign -country, on a mission which was not without peril and might keep him for -many months absent. He asked her for a remembrance, and she had none to -give him but the collar about the little dog’s neck. She was sorry -afterward that she had given it, but he was so unhappy at going that she -had not had the courage to refuse.</p> -<p>Her husband was away at the time. When he returned a few days later he -picked up the animal to pet it, and noticed that its collar was missing. -His wife told him that the dog had lost it in the undergrowth of the -park, and that she and her maids had hunted a whole day for it. It was -true, she explained to the court, that she had made the maids search for -the necklet—they all believed the dog had lost it in the park.</p> -<p>Her husband made no comment, and that evening at supper he was in his -usual mood, between good and bad: you could never tell which. He talked -a good deal, describing what he had seen and done at Rennes; but now and -then he stopped and looked hard at her, and when she went to bed she -found her little dog strangled on her pillow. The little thing was dead, -but still warm; she stooped to lift it, and her distress turned to -horror when she discovered that it had been strangled by twisting twice -round its throat the necklet she had given to Lanrivain.</p> -<p>The next morning at dawn she buried the dog in the garden, and hid the -necklet in her breast. She said nothing to her husband, then or later, -and he said nothing to her; but that day he had a peasant hanged for -stealing a faggot in the park, and the next day he nearly beat to death -a young horse he was breaking.</p> -<p>Winter set in, and the short days passed, and the long nights, one by -one; and she heard nothing of Hervé de Lanrivain. It might be that her -husband had killed him; or merely that he had been robbed of the -necklet. Day after day by the hearth among the spinning maids, night -after night alone on her bed, she wondered and trembled. Sometimes at -table her husband looked across at her and smiled; and then she felt -sure that Lanrivain was dead. She dared not try to get news of him, for -she was sure her husband would find out if she did: she had an idea that -he could find out anything. Even when a witch-woman who was a noted -seer, and could show you the whole world in her crystal, came to the -castle for a night’s shelter, and the maids flocked to her, Anne held -back.</p> -<p>The winter was long and black and rainy. One day, in Yves de Cornault’s -absence, some gypsies came to Kerfol with a troop of performing dogs. -Anne bought the smallest and cleverest, a white dog with a feathery coat -and one blue and one brown eye. It seemed to have been ill-treated by -the gypsies, and clung to her plaintively when she took it from them. -That evening her husband came back, and when she went to bed she found -the dog strangled on her pillow.</p> -<p>After that she said to herself that she would never have another dog; -but one bitter cold evening a poor lean greyhound was found whining at -the castle-gate, and she took him in and forbade the maids to speak of -him to her husband. She hid him in a room that no one went to, smuggled -food to him from her own plate, made him a warm bed to lie on and petted -him like a child.</p> -<p>Yves de Cornault came home, and the next day she found the greyhound -strangled on her pillow. She wept in secret, but said nothing, and -resolved that even if she met a dog dying of hunger she would never -bring him into the castle; but one day she found a young sheep-dog, a -brindled puppy with good blue eyes, lying with a broken leg in the snow -of the park. Yves de Cornault was at Rennes, and she brought the dog in, -warmed and fed it, tied up its leg and hid it in the castle till her -husband’s return. The day before, she gave it to a peasant woman who -lived a long way off, and paid her handsomely to care for it and say -nothing; but that night she heard a whining and scratching at her door, -and when she opened it the lame puppy, drenched and shivering, jumped up -on her with little sobbing barks. She hid him in her bed, and the next -morning was about to have him taken back to the peasant woman when she -heard her husband ride into the court. She shut the dog in a chest, and -went down to receive him. An hour or two later, when she returned to her -room, the puppy lay strangled on her pillow....</p> -<p>After that she dared not make a pet of any other dog; and her loneliness -became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she crossed the court of the -castle, and thought no one was looking, she stopped to pat the old -pointer at the gate. But one day as she was caressing him her husband -came out of the chapel; and the next day the old dog was gone....</p> -<p>This curious narrative was not told in one sitting of the court, or -received without impatience and incredulous comment. It was plain that -the Judges were surprised by its puerility, and that it did not help the -accused in the eyes of the public. It was an odd tale, certainly; but -what did it prove? That Yves de Cornault disliked dogs, and that his -wife, to gratify her own fancy, persistently ignored this dislike. As -for pleading this trivial disagreement as an excuse for her -relations—whatever their nature—with her supposed accomplice, the -argument was so absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having -let her make use of it, and tried several times to cut short her story. -But she went on to the end, with a kind of hypnotised insistence, as -though the scenes she evoked were so real to her that she had forgotten -where she was and imagined herself to be re-living them.</p> -<p>At length the Judge who had previously shown a certain kindness to her -said (leaning forward a little, one may suppose, from his row of dozing -colleagues): “Then you would have us believe that you murdered your -husband because he would not let you keep a pet dog?”</p> -<p>“I did not murder my husband.”</p> -<p>“Who did, then? Hervé de Lanrivain?”</p> -<p>“No.”</p> -<p>“Who then? Can you tell us?”</p> -<p>“Yes, I can tell you. The dogs—” At that point she was carried out of -the court in a swoon.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>It was evident that her lawyer tried to get her to abandon this line of -defence. Possibly her explanation, whatever it was, had seemed -convincing when she poured it out to him in the heat of their first -private colloquy; but now that it was exposed to the cold daylight of -judicial scrutiny, and the banter of the town, he was thoroughly ashamed -of it, and would have sacrificed her without a scruple to save his -professional reputation. But the obstinate Judge—who perhaps, after all, -was more inquisitive than kindly—evidently wanted to hear the story out, -and she was ordered, the next day, to continue her deposition.</p> -<p>She said that after the disappearance of the old watchdog nothing -particular happened for a month or two. Her husband was much as usual: -she did not remember any special incident. But one evening a pedlar -woman came to the castle and was selling trinkets to the maids. She had -no heart for trinkets, but she stood looking on while the women made -their choice. And then, she did not know how, but the pedlar coaxed her -into buying for herself a pear-shaped pomander with a strong scent in -it—she had once seen something of the kind on a gypsy woman. She had no -desire for the pomander, and did not know why she had bought it. The -pedlar said that whoever wore it had the power to read the future; but -she did not really believe that, or care much either. However, she -bought the thing and took it up to her room, where she sat turning it -about in her hand. Then the strange scent attracted her and she began to -wonder what kind of spice was in the box. She opened it and found a grey -bean rolled in a strip of paper; and on the paper she saw a sign she -knew, and a message from Hervé de Lanrivain, saying that he was at home -again and would be at the door in the court that night after the moon -had set....</p> -<p>She burned the paper and sat down to think. It was nightfall, and her -husband was at home.... She had no way of warning Lanrivain, and there -was nothing to do but to wait....</p> -<p>At this point I fancy the drowsy court-room beginning to wake up. Even -to the oldest hand on the bench there must have been a certain relish in -picturing the feelings of a woman on receiving such a message at -nightfall from a man living twenty miles away, to whom she had no means -of sending a warning....</p> -<p>She was not a clever woman, I imagine; and as the first result of her -cogitation she appears to have made the mistake of being, that evening, -too kind to her husband. She could not ply him with wine, according to -the traditional expedient, for though he drank heavily at times, he had -a strong head; and when he drank beyond its strength it was because he -chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife, at any -rate—she was an old story by now. As I read the case, I fancy there was -no feeling for her left in him but the hatred occasioned by his supposed -dishonour.</p> -<p>At any rate, she tried to call up her old graces; but early in the -evening he complained of pains and fever, and left the hall to go up to -the closet where he sometimes slept. His servant carried him a cup of -hot wine, and brought back word that he was sleeping and not to be -disturbed; and an hour later, when Anne lifted the tapestry and listened -at his door, she heard his loud regular breathing. She thought it might -be a feint, and stayed a long time barefooted in the passage, her ear to -the crack; but the breathing went on too steadily and naturally to be -other than that of a man in a sound sleep. She crept back to her room -reassured, and stood in the window watching the moon set through the -trees of the park. The sky was misty and starless, and after the moon -went down the night was black as pitch. She knew the time had come, and -stole along the passage, past her husband’s door—where she stopped again -to listen to his breathing—to the top of the stairs. There she paused a -moment, and assured herself that no one was following her; then she -began to go down the stairs in the darkness. They were so steep and -winding that she had to go very slowly, for fear of stumbling. Her one -thought was to get the door unbolted, tell Lanrivain to make his escape, -and hasten back to her room. She had tried the bolt earlier in the -evening, and managed to put a little grease on it; but nevertheless, -when she drew it, it gave a squeak ... not loud, but it made her heart -stop; and the next minute, overhead, she heard a noise....</p> -<p>“What noise?” the prosecution interposed.</p> -<p>“My husband’s voice calling out my name and cursing me.”</p> -<p>“What did you hear after that?”</p> -<p>“A terrible scream and a fall.”</p> -<p>“Where was Hervé de Lanrivain at this time?”</p> -<p>“He was standing outside in the court. I just made him out in the -darkness. I told him for God’s sake to go, and then I pushed the door -shut.”</p> -<p>“What did you do next?”</p> -<p>“I stood at the foot of the stairs and listened.”</p> -<p>“What did you hear?”</p> -<p>“I heard dogs snarling and panting.” (Visible discouragement of the -bench, boredom of the public, and exasperation of the lawyer for the -defence. Dogs again! But the inquisitive Judge insisted.)</p> -<p>“What dogs?”</p> -<p>She bent her head and spoke so low that she had to be told to repeat her -answer: “I don’t know.”</p> -<p>“How do you mean—you don’t know?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know what dogs....”</p> -<p>The Judge again intervened: “Try to tell us exactly what happened. How -long did you remain at the foot of the stairs?”</p> -<p>“Only a few minutes.”</p> -<p>“And what was going on meanwhile overhead?”</p> -<p>“The dogs kept on snarling and panting. Once or twice he cried out. I -think he moaned. Then he was quiet.”</p> -<p>“Then what happened?”</p> -<p>“Then I heard a sound like the noise of a pack when the wolf is thrown -to them—gulping and lapping.”</p> -<p>(There was a groan of disgust and repulsion through the court, and -another attempted intervention by the distracted lawyer. But the -inquisitive Judge was still inquisitive.)</p> -<p>“And all the while you did not go up?”</p> -<p>“Yes—I went up then—to drive them off.”</p> -<p>“The dogs?”</p> -<p>“Yes.”</p> -<p>“Well——?”</p> -<p>“When I got there it was quite dark. I found my husband’s flint and -steel and struck a spark. I saw him lying there. He was dead.”</p> -<p>“And the dogs?”</p> -<p>“The dogs were gone.”</p> -<p>“Gone—where to?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know. There was no way out—and there were no dogs at Kerfol.”</p> -<p>She straightened herself to her full height, threw her arms above her -head, and fell down on the stone floor with a long scream. There was a -moment of confusion in the court-room. Some one on the bench was heard -to say: “This is clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities”—and -the prisoner’s lawyer doubtless jumped at the suggestion.</p> -<p>After this, the trial loses itself in a maze of cross-questioning and -squabbling. Every witness who was called corroborated Anne de Cornault’s -statement that there were no dogs at Kerfol: had been none for several -months. The master of the house had taken a dislike to dogs, there was -no denying it. But, on the other hand, at the inquest, there had been -long and bitter discussions as to the nature of the dead man’s wounds. -One of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that looked like -bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and the opposing -lawyers hurled tomes of necromancy at each other.</p> -<p>At last Anne de Cornault was brought back into court—at the instance of -the same Judge—and asked if she knew where the dogs she spoke of could -have come from. On the body of her Redeemer she swore that she did not. -Then the Judge put his final question: “If the dogs you think you heard -had been known to you, do you think you would have recognized them by -their barking?”</p> -<p>“Yes.”</p> -<p>“Did you recognize them?”</p> -<p>“Yes.”</p> -<p>“What dogs do you take them to have been?”</p> -<p>“My dead dogs,” she said in a whisper.... She was taken out of court, -not to reappear there again. There was some kind of ecclesiastical -investigation, and the end of the business was that the Judges disagreed -with each other, and with the ecclesiastical committee, and that Anne de -Cornault was finally handed over to the keeping of her husband’s family, -who shut her up in the keep of Kerfol, where she is said to have died -many years later, a harmless mad-woman.</p> -<p>So ends her story. As for that of Hervé de Lanrivain, I had only to -apply to his collateral descendant for its subsequent details. The -evidence against the young man being insufficient, and his family -influence in the duchy considerable, he was set free, and left soon -afterward for Paris. He was probably in no mood for a worldly life, and -he appears to have come almost immediately under the influence of the -famous M. Arnauld d’Andilly and the gentlemen of Port Royal. A year or -two later he was received into their Order, and without achieving any -particular distinction he followed its good and evil fortunes till his -death some twenty years later. Lanrivain showed me a portrait of him by -a pupil of Philippe de Champaigne: sad eyes, an impulsive mouth and a -narrow brow. Poor Hervé de Lanrivain: it was a grey ending. Yet as I -looked at his stiff and sallow effigy, in the dark dress of the -Jansenists, I almost found myself envying his fate. After all, in the -course of his life two great things had happened to him: he had loved -romantically, and he must have talked with Pascal....</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Chink and the Child' id='s2'>THE CHINK AND THE CHILD</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By THOMAS BURKE</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>Limehouse Nights</i>, by Thomas Burke. Copyright, 1917, by -Robert M. McBride and Company.</p> -<p>It is a tale of love and lovers that they tell in the low-lit Causeway -that slinks from West India Dock Road to the dark waste of waters -beyond. In Pennyfields, too, you may hear it; and I do not doubt that it -is told in far-away Tai-Ping, in Singapore, in Tokio, in Shanghai, and -those other gay-lamped haunts of wonder whither the wandering people of -Limehouse go and whence they return so casually. It is a tale for tears, -and should you hear it in the lilied tongue of the yellow men, it would -awaken in you all your pity. In our bald speech it must, unhappily, lose -its essential fragrance, that quality that will lift an affair of -squalor into the loftier spheres of passion and imagination, beauty and -sorrow. It will sound unconvincing, a little ... you know ... the kind -of thing that is best forgotten. Perhaps....</p> -<p>But listen.</p> -<p>It is Battling Burrows, the lightning welter-weight of Shadwell, the box -o’ tricks, the Tetrarch of the ring, who enters first. Battling Burrows, -the pride of Ratcliff, Poplar and Limehouse, and the despair of his -manager and backers. For he loved wine, woman and song; and the boxing -world held that he couldn’t last long on that. There was any amount of -money in him for his parasites if only the damned women could be cut -out; but again and again would he disappear from his training quarters -on the eve of a big fight, to consort with Molly and Dolly, and to drink -other things than barley-water and lemon-juice. Wherefore Chuck -Lightfoot, his manager, forced him to fight on any and every occasion -while he was good and a money-maker; for at any moment the collapse -might come, and Chuck would be called upon by his creditors to strip off -that “shirt” which at every contest he laid upon his man.</p> -<p>Battling was of a type that is too common in the eastern districts of -London; a type that upsets all accepted classifications. He wouldn’t be -classed. He was a curious mixture of athleticism and degeneracy. He -could run like a deer, leap like a greyhound, fight like a machine, and -drink like a suction-hose. He was a bully; he had the courage of the -high hero. He was an open-air sport; he had the vices of a French -decadent.</p> -<p>It was one of his love adventures that properly begins this tale; for -the girl had come to Battling one night with a recital of terrible -happenings; of an angered parent, of a slammed door.... In her arms was -a bundle of white rags. Now Battling, like so many sensualists, was also -a sentimentalist. He took that bundle of white rags; he paid the girl -money to get into the country; and the bundle of white rags had existed -in and about his domicile in Pekin Street, Limehouse, for some eleven -years. Her position was nondescript; to the casual observer it would -seem that she was Battling’s relief punch-ball—an unpleasant post for -any human creature to occupy, especially if you are a little girl of -twelve, and the place be the one-room household of the lightning -welter-weight. When Battling was cross with his manager ... well, it is -indefensible to strike your manager or to throw chairs at him, if he is -a good manager; but to use a dogwhip on a small child is permissible and -quite as satisfying; at least he found it so. On these occasions, then, -when very cross with his sparring partners, or overflushed with victory -and juice of the grape, he would flog Lucy. But he was reputed by the -boys to be a good fellow. He only whipped the child when he was drunk; -and he was only drunk for eight months of the year.</p> -<p>For just over twelve years this bruised little body had crept about -Poplar and Limehouse. Always the white face was scarred with red, or -black-furrowed with tears; always in her steps and in her look was -expectation of dread things. Night after night her sleep was broken by -the cheerful Battling’s brute voice and violent hands; and terrible were -the lessons which life taught her in those few years. Yet, for all the -starved face and the transfixed air, there was a lurking beauty about -her, a something that called you in the soft curve of her cheek that -cried for kisses and was fed with blows, and in the splendid -mournfulness that grew in eyes and lips. The brown hair chimed against -the pale face, like the rounding of a verse. The blue cotton frock and -the broken shoes could not break the loveliness of her slender figure or -the shy grace of her movements as she flitted about the squalid alleys -of the docks; though in all that region of wasted life and toil and -decay, there was not one that noticed her, until....</p> -<p>Now there lived in Chinatown, in one lousy room over Mr. Tai Fu’s store -in Pennyfields, a wandering yellow man, named Cheng Huan. Cheng Huan was -a poet. He did not realise it. He had never been able to understand why -he was unpopular; and he died without knowing. But a poet he was, tinged -with the materialism of his race, and in his poor listening heart -strange echoes would awake of which he himself was barely conscious. He -regarded things differently from other sailors; he felt things more -passionately, and things which they felt not at all; so he lived alone -instead of at one of the lodging-houses. Every evening he would sit at -his window and watch the street. Then, a little later, he would take a -jolt of opium at the place at the corner of Formosa Street.</p> -<p>He had come to London by devious ways. He had loafed on the Bund at -Shanghai. The fateful intervention of a crimp had landed him on a boat. -He got to Cardiff, and sojourned in its Chinatown; thence to Liverpool, -to Glasgow; thence, by a ticket from the Asiatics’ Aid Society, to -Limehouse, where he remained for two reasons—because it cost him nothing -to live there, and because he was too lazy to find a boat to take him -back to Shanghai.</p> -<p>So he would lounge and smoke cheap cigarettes, and sit at his window, -from which point he had many times observed the lyrical Lucy. He noticed -her casually. Another day, he observed her, not casually. Later, he -looked long at her; later still, he began to watch for her and for that -strangely provocative something about the toss of the head and the hang -of the little blue skirt as it coyly kissed her knee.</p> -<p>Then that beauty which all Limehouse had missed smote Cheng. Straight to -his heart it went, and cried itself into his very blood. Thereafter the -spirit of poetry broke her blossoms all about his odorous chamber. -Nothing was the same. Pennyfields became a happy-lanterned street, and -the monotonous fiddle in the house opposite was the music of his -fathers. Bits of old song floated through his mind: little sweet verses -of Le Tai-pih, murmuring of plum blossom, ricefield and stream. Day by -day he would moon at his window, or shuffle about the streets, lighting -to a flame when Lucy would pass and gravely return his quiet regard; and -night after night, too, he would dream of a pale, lily-lovely child.</p> -<p>And now the Fates moved swiftly various pieces on their sinister board, -and all that followed happened with a speed and precision that showed -direction from higher ways.</p> -<p>It was Wednesday night in Limehouse, and for once clear of mist. Out of -the coloured darkness of the Causeway stole the muffled wail of reed -instruments, and, though every window was closely shuttered, between the -joints shot jets of light and stealthy voices, and you could hear the -whisper of slippered feet, and the stuttering steps of the satyr and the -sadist. It was to the café in the middle of the Causeway, lit by the -pallid blue light that is the symbol of China throughout the world, that -Cheng Huan came, to take a dish of noodle and some tea. Thence he moved -to another house whose stairs ran straight to the street, and above -whose doorway a lamp glowed like an evil eye. At this establishment he -mostly took his pipe of “chandu” and a brief chat with the keeper of the -house, for, although not popular, and very silent, he liked sometimes to -be in the presence of his compatriots. Like a figure of a shadowgraph he -slid through the door and up the stairs.</p> -<p>The chamber he entered was a bit of the Orient squatting at the portals -of the West. It was a well-kept place where one might play a game of -fan-tan, or take a shot or so of <i>li-un</i>, or purchase other varieties of -Oriental delight. It was sunk in a purple dusk, though here and there a -lantern stung the gloom. Low couches lay around the walls, and strange -men decorated them: Chinese, Japs, Malays, Lascars, with one or two -white girls; and sleek, noiseless attendants swam from couch to couch. -Away in the far corner sprawled a lank figure in brown shirting, its -nerveless fingers curled about the stem of a spent pipe. On one of the -lounges a scorbutic nigger sat with a Jewess from Shadwell. Squatting on -a table in the centre, beneath one of the lanterns, was a musician with -a reed, blinking upon the company like a sly cat, and making his melody -of six repeated notes.</p> -<p>The atmosphere churned. The dirt of years, tobacco of many growings, -opium, betel nut, and moist flesh allied themselves in one grand assault -against the nostrils.</p> -<p>As Cheng brooded on his insect-ridden cushion, of a sudden the lantern -above the musician was caught by the ribbon of his reed. It danced and -flung a hazy radiance on a divan in the shadow. He saw—started—half -rose. His heart galloped, and the blood pounded in his quiet veins. Then -he dropped again,—crouched, and stared.</p> -<p>O lily-flowers and plum blossoms! O silver streams and dim-starred -skies! O wine and roses, song and laughter! For there, kneeling on a -mass of rugs, mazed and big-eyed, but understanding, was Lucy ... his -Lucy ... his little maid. Through the dusk she must have felt his intent -gaze upon her; for he crouched there, fascinated, staring into the now -obscured corner where she knelt.</p> -<p>But the sickness which momentarily gripped him on finding in this place -his snowy-breasted pearl passed and gave place to great joy. She was -here; he would talk with her. Little English he had, but simple words, -those with few gutturals, he had managed to pick up; so he rose, the -masterful lover, and, with feline movements, crossed the nightmare -chamber to claim his own.</p> -<p>If you wonder how Lucy came to be in this bagnio, the explanation is -simple. Battling was in training. He had flogged her that day before -starting work; he had then had a few brandies—not many; some eighteen or -nineteen—and had locked the door of his room and taken the key. Lucy -was, therefore, homeless, and a girl somewhat older than Lucy, so old -and so wise, as girls are in that region, saw in her a possible source -of revenue. So there they were, and to them appeared Cheng.</p> -<p>From what horrors he saved her that night cannot be told, for her ways -were too audaciously childish to hold her long from harm in such a -place. What he brought to her was love and death.</p> -<p>For he sat by her. He looked at her—reverently yet passionately. He -touched her—wistfully yet eagerly. He locked a finger in her wondrous -hair. She did not start away; she did not tremble. She knew well what -she had to be afraid of in that place; but she was not afraid of Cheng. -She pierced the mephitic gloom and scanned his face. No, she was not -afraid. His yellow hands, his yellow face, his smooth black hair ... -well, he was the first thing that had ever spoken soft words to her; the -first thing that had ever laid a hand upon her that was not brutal; the -first thing that had deferred in manner towards her as though she, too, -had a right to live. She knew his words were sweet, though she did not -understand them. Nor can they be set down. Half that he spoke was in -village Chinese; the rest in a mangling of English which no distorted -spelling could possibly reproduce.</p> -<p>But he drew her back against the cushions and asked her name, and she -told him; and he inquired her age, and she told him; and he had then two -beautiful words that came easily to his tongue. He repeated them again -and again:</p> -<p>“Lucia ... l’il Lucia.... Twelve.... Twelve.” Musical phrases they were, -dropping from his lips, and to the child who heard her name pronounced -so lovingly, they were the lost heights of melody. She clung to him, and -he to her. She held his strong arm in both of hers as they crouched on -the divan, and nestled her cheek against his coat.</p> -<p>Well ... he took her home to his wretched room.</p> -<p>“Li’l Lucia, come-a-home ... Lucia.”</p> -<p>His heart was on fire. As they slipped out of the noisomeness into the -night air and crossed the West India Dock Road into Pennyfields, they -passed unnoticed. It was late, for one thing, and for another ... well, -nobody cared particularly. His blood rang with soft music and the -solemnity of drums, for surely he had found now what for many years he -had sought—his world’s one flower. Wanderer he was, from Tuan-tsen to -Shanghai, Shanghai to Glasgow, Cardiff ... Liverpool ... London. He had -dreamed often of the women of his native land; perchance one of them -should be his flower. Women, indeed, there had been. Swatow ... he had -recollections of certain rose-winged hours in coast cities. At many -places to which chance had led him a little bird had perched itself upon -his heart, but so lightly and for so brief a while as hardly to be felt. -But now—now he had found her in this alabaster Cockney child. So that he -was glad and had great joy of himself and the blue and silver night, and -the harsh flares of the Poplar Hippodrome.</p> -<p>You will observe that he had claimed her, but had not asked himself -whether she were of an age for love. The white perfection of the child -had captivated every sense. It may be that he forgot that he was in -London and not in Tuan-tsen. It may be that he did not care. Of that -nothing can be told. All that is known is that his love was a pure and -holy thing. Of that we may be sure, for his worst enemies have said it.</p> -<p>Slowly, softly they mounted the stairs to his room, and with almost an -obeisance he entered and drew her in. A bank of cloud raced to the east -and a full moon thrust a sharp sword of light upon them. Silence lay -over all Pennyfields. With a bird-like movement, she looked up at -him—her face alight, her tiny hands upon his coat—clinging, wondering, -trusting. He took her hand and kissed it; repeated the kiss upon her -cheek and lip and little bosom, twining his fingers in her hair. -Docilely, and echoing the smile of his lemon lips in a way that thrilled -him almost to laughter, she returned his kisses impetuously, gladly.</p> -<p>He clasped the nestling to him. Bruised, tearful, with the love of life -almost thrashed out of her, she had fluttered to him out of the evil -night.</p> -<p>“O li’l Lucia!” And he put soft hands upon her, and smoothed her and -crooned over her many gracious things in his flowered speech. So they -stood in the moonlight, while she told him the story of her father, of -her beatings, and starvings and unhappiness.</p> -<p>“O li’l Lucia.... White Blossom.... Twelve.... Twelve years old!”</p> -<p>As he spoke, the clock above the Milwall Docks shot twelve crashing -notes across the night. When the last echo died, he moved to a cupboard, -and from it he drew strange things ... formless masses of blue and gold, -magical things of silk, and a vessel that was surely Aladdin’s lamp, and -a box of spices. He took these robes, and, with tender, reverent -fingers, removed from his White Blossom the besmirched rags that covered -her and robed her again, and led her then to the heap of stuff that was -his bed, and bestowed her safely.</p> -<p>For himself, he squatted on the floor before her, holding one grubby -little hand. There he crouched all night, under the lyric moon, -sleepless, watchful; and sweet content was his. He had fallen into an -uncomfortable posture, and his muscles ached intolerably. But she slept, -and he dared not move nor release her hand lest he should awaken her. -Weary and trustful, she slept, knowing that the yellow man was kind and -that she might sleep with no fear of a steel hand smashing the delicate -structure of her dreams.</p> -<p>In the morning, when she awoke, still wearing her blue and yellow silk, -she gave a cry of amazement. Cheng had been about. Many times had he -glided up and down the two flights of stairs, and now at last his room -was prepared for his princess. It was swept and garnished, and was an -apartment worthy a maid who is loved by a poet-prince. There was a bead -curtain. There were muslins of pink and white. There were four bowls of -flowers, clean, clear flowers to gladden the White Blossom and set off -her sharp beauty. And there was a bowl of water, and a sweet lotion for -the bruise on her cheek.</p> -<p>When she had risen, her prince ministered to her with rice and egg and -tea. Cleansed and robed and calm, she sat before him, perched on the end -of many cushions as on a throne, with all the grace of the child -princess in the story. She was a poem. The beauty hidden by neglect and -fatigue shone out now more clearly and vividly, and from the head -sunning over with curls to the small white feet, now bathed and -sandalled, she seemed the living interpretation of a Chinese lyric. And -she was his; her sweet self and her prattle, and her bird-like ways were -all his own.</p> -<p>Oh, beautifully they loved. For two days he held her. Soft caresses from -his yellow hands and long, devout kisses were all their demonstration. -Each night he would tend her, as might mother to child; and each night -he watched and sometimes slumbered at the foot of her couch.</p> -<p>But now there were those that ran to Battling at his training quarters -across the river, with the news that his child had gone with a Chink—a -yellow man. And Battling was angry. He discovered parental rights. He -discovered indignation. A yellow man after his kid! He’d learn him. -Battling did not like men who were not born in the same great country as -himself. Particularly he disliked yellow men. His birth and education in -Shadwell had taught him that of all creeping things that creep upon the -earth the most insidious is the Oriental in the West. And a yellow man -and a child. It was ... as you might say ... so ... kind of ... well, -wasn’t it? He bellowed that it was “unnacherel.” The yeller man would go -through it. Yeller! It was his supreme condemnation, his final epithet -for all conduct of which he disapproved.</p> -<p>There was no doubt that he was extremely annoyed. He went to the Blue -Lantern, in what was once Ratcliff Highway, and thumped the bar, and -made all his world agree with him. And when they agreed with him he got -angrier still. So that when, a few hours later, he climbed through the -ropes at the Netherlands to meet Bud Tuffit for ten rounds, it was Bud’s -fight all the time, and to that bright boy’s astonishment he was the -victor on points at the end of the ten. Battling slouched out of the -ring, still more determined to let the Chink have it where the chicken -had the axe. He left the house with two pals and a black man, and a -number of really inspired curses from his manager.</p> -<p>On the evening of the third day, then, Cheng slipped sleepily down the -stairs to procure more flowers and more rice. The genial Ho Ling, who -keeps the Canton store, held him in talk some little while, and he was -gone from his room perhaps half-an-hour. Then he glided back, and -climbed with happy feet the forty stairs to his temple of wonder.</p> -<p>With a push of a finger he opened the door, and the blood froze on his -cheek, the flowers fell from him. The temple was empty and desolate; -White Blossom was gone. The muslin hangings were torn down and trampled -underfoot. The flowers had been flung from their bowls about the floor, -and the bowls lay in fifty fragments. The joss was smashed. The cupboard -had been opened. Rice was scattered here and there. The little straight -bed had been jumped upon by brute feet. Everything that could be smashed -or violated had been so treated, and—horror of all—the blue and yellow -silk robe had been rent in pieces, tied in grotesque knots, and slung -derisively about the table legs.</p> -<p>I pray devoutly that you may never suffer what Cheng Huan suffered in -that moment. The pangs of death, with no dying; the sickness of the soul -which longs to escape and cannot; the imprisoned animal within the -breast which struggles madly for a voice and finds none; all the agonies -of all the ages—the agonies of every abandoned lover and lost woman, -past and to come—all these things were his in that moment.</p> -<p>Then he found voice and gave a great cry, and men from below came up to -him; and they told him how the man who boxed had been there with a black -man; how he had torn the robes from his child, and dragged her down the -stairs by her hair; and how he had shouted aloud for Cheng and had vowed -to return and deal separately with him.</p> -<p>Now a terrible dignity came to Cheng, and the soul of his great fathers -swept over him. He closed the door against them, and fell prostrate over -what had been the resting-place of White Blossom. Those without heard -strange sounds as of an animal in its last pains; and it was even so. -Cheng was dying. The sacrament of his high and holy passion had been -profaned; the last sanctuary of the Oriental—his soul dignity—had been -assaulted. The love robes had been torn to ribbons; the veil of his -temple cut down. Life was no longer possible; and life without his -little lady, his White Blossom, was no longer desirable.</p> -<p>Prostrate he lay for the space of some five minutes. Then, in his face -all the pride of accepted destiny, he arose. He drew together the little -bed. With reverent hands he took the pieces of blue and yellow silk, -kissing them and fondling them and placing them about the pillow. -Silently he gathered up the flowers, and the broken earthenware, and -burnt some prayer papers and prepared himself for death.</p> -<p>Now it is the custom among those of the sect of Cheng that the dying -shall present love-gifts to their enemies; and when he had set all in -order, he gathered his brown canvas coat about him, stole from the -house, and set out to find Battling Burrows, bearing under the coat his -love-gift to Battling. White Blossom he had no hope of finding. He had -heard of Burrows many times; and he judged that, now that she was taken -from him, never again would he hold those hands or touch that laughing -hair. Nor, if he did, could it change things from what they were. -Nothing that was not a dog could live in the face of this sacrilege.</p> -<p>As he came before the house in Pekin Street, where Battling lived, he -murmured gracious prayers. Fortunately, it was a night of thick river -mist, and through the enveloping velvet none could observe or challenge -him. The main door was open, as are all doors in this district. He -writhed across the step, and through to the back room, where again the -door yielded to a touch.</p> -<p>Darkness. Darkness and silence, and a sense of frightful things. He -peered through it. Then he fumbled under his jacket—found a match—struck -it. An inch of a candle stood on the mantelshelf. He lit it. He looked -around. No sign of Burrows, but ... Almost before he looked he knew what -awaited him. But the sense of finality had kindly stunned him; he could -suffer nothing more.</p> -<p>On the table lay a dog-whip. In the corner a belt had been flung. Half -across the greasy couch lay White Blossom. A few rags of clothing were -about her pale and slim body; her hair hung limp as her limbs; her eyes -were closed. As Cheng drew nearer and saw the savage red rails that ran -across and across the beloved body, he could not scream—he could not -think. He dropped beside the couch. He laid gentle hands upon her, and -called soft names. She was warm to the touch. The pulse was still.</p> -<p>Softly, oh, so softly, he bent over the little frame that had enclosed -his friend-spirit, and his light kisses fell all about her. Then, with -the undirected movements of a sleep-walker, he bestowed the rags -decently about her, clasped her in strong arms, and crept silently into -the night.</p> -<p>From Pekin Street to Pennyfields it is but a turn or two, and again he -passed unobserved as he bore his tired bird back to her nest. He laid -her upon the bed, and covered the lily limbs with the blue and yellow -silks and strewed upon her a few of the trampled flowers. Then, with -more kisses and prayers, he crouched beside her.</p> -<p>So, in the ghastly Limehouse morning, they were found—the dead child, -and the Chink, kneeling beside her, with a sharp knife gripped in a -vice-like hand, its blade far between his ribs.</p> -<p>Meantime, having vented his wrath on his prodigal daughter, Battling, -still cross, had returned to the Blue Lantern, and there he stayed with -a brandy tumbler in his fist, forgetful of an appointment at -Premierland, whereby he should have been in the ring at ten o’clock -sharp. For the space of an hour Chuck Lightfoot was going blasphemously -to and fro in Poplar, seeking Battling and not finding him, and -murmuring in tearful tones: “Battling—you dammanblasted Battling—where -are yeh?”</p> -<p>His opponent was in his corner sure enough, but there was no fight. For -Battling lurched from the Blue Lantern to Pekin Street. He lurched into -his happy home, and he cursed Lucy, and called for her. And finding no -matches, he lurched to where he knew the couch should be, and flopped -heavily down.</p> -<p>Now it is a peculiarity of the reptile tribe that its members are -impatient of being flopped on without warning. So, when Battling -flopped, eighteen inches of writhing gristle upreared itself on the -couch, and got home on him as Bud Tuffit had done the night before—one -to the ear, one to the throat, and another to the forearm.</p> -<p>Battling went down and out.</p> -<p>And he, too, was found in the morning, with Cheng Huan’s love-gift -coiled about his neck.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Nomad' id='s3'>THE NOMAD</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By ROBERT HICHENS</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>Snakebite</i>, by Robert Hichens. Copyright, 1919, by George H. -Doran Company.</p> -<h3>1</h3> -<p>The fate of Madame Lemaire had certainly not been an ordinary one. She -was French, of Marseilles, as you could tell by her accent, especially -when she said “<i>C’est bien!</i>” and had been an extremely coquettish and -lively girl, with a strong will of her own and a passionate love of -pleasure and of town life. From her talk when she was seventeen, you -would have gathered that if she ever moved from Marseilles it would be -to go to Paris. Nothing else would be good enough for her. She felt -herself born to play a part in some great city.</p> -<p>And yet, at the age of forty, here she was in the desert of Sahara, -keeping an <i>auberge</i> at El-Kelf under the salt mountain! She sometimes -wondered how it had ever come about, when she crossed the court of the -inn, round which mules of customers were tethered in open sheds, or when -she served the rough Algerian wine to farmers from the Tell, or to some -dusty commercial traveller from Batna, in the arbour trellised with -vines that fronted the desert.</p> -<p>Marie Lemaire, who had been Marie Bretelle, at El-Kelf! Marie Lemaire in -the desert of Sahara attending upon God knows whom: Algerians, Spahis, -camel-drivers, gazelle-hunters! No; it was too much!</p> -<p>But if you have a “kink” in you, to what may you not come? Marie -Bretelle’s “kink” had been an idiotic softness for handsome faces.</p> -<p>She wanted to shine in the world, to cut a dash, to go to Paris; or, if -that were impossible, to stay in Marseilles married to some rich city -man, and to give parties, and to get gowns from Madame Vannier, of the -Rue de Cliche, and hats from Trebichot, of the Rue des Colonies, and to -attend the theatres, and to be stared at and pointed out on the -race-course, and—and, in fact, to be the belle of Marseilles. And here -she was at El-Kelf and all because of that “kink” in her nature!</p> -<p>Lemaire had had a handsome face and been a fine man, stalwart, bold, -muscular, determined. He did not belong to Marseilles, but had come -there to give an acrobatic show in a music-hall; and there Marie -Bretelle had seen him, dressed in silver-spangled tights, and doing -marvellous feats on three parallel bars. His bare arms had lumps on them -like balls of iron, his fair moustaches were trained into points, his -bold eyes were lit with a fire to fascinate women; and—well, Marie -Bretelle ran away with him and became Madame Lemaire. And so she came to -Algiers, where Lemaire had an accident while giving his performance. And -that was the beginning of the Odyssey which had ended at El-Kelf.</p> -<p>“Fool—fool—fool!”</p> -<p>Often she said that to herself, as she went about the inn doing her -duties with grains of sand in her hair.</p> -<p>“Fool—fool—fool!”</p> -<p>The word was taken by the wind of the waste and carried away to the -desert.</p> -<p>After his accident Lemaire lost his engagements. Then he lost his looks. -He put on flesh. He ceased to train his moustaches into points. The -great muscles got soft, were covered with flabby fat. Finally he took to -drink. And so they drifted.</p> -<p>To earn some money he became many things—guide, <i>concierge</i>, tout for -“La Belle Fatma.” He had impossible professions in Algiers. And Marie? -Well, it were best not to scrutinise her life too closely under the -burning sun of Africa. Whatever it was, it was not very successful; and -they drifted from Algiers. Where did they go? Where had they not been in -this fiery land? Oran on the Moroccan border had seen them, and the -mosques of Kairouan, windy Tunis, and rock-bound Constantine, laughing -Bougie in its wall by the water, Fort National in the Grande Kabyle. -They had been everywhere. And at last some wind of the desert had blown -them, like poor grains of desert sand, from the bending palms of Biskra -to the mud walls of El-Kelf.</p> -<p>And here—Gold help them!—for ten years they had been keeping the inn, -“Au Retour du Desert.”</p> -<p>For ten, long, dry years, and such an inn! Why, at Marseilles they would -have called it—well, one cannot tell what they would have called it on -the Cannebiere! But they would have found a name for it, that is -certain.</p> -<p>It stood alone, this inn, quite alone in the desert, which at El-Kelf -circles a small oasis in which there is hidden among fair-sized palms a -meagre Arab village. Why the inn should have been built outside of the -oasis, away from the village, I cannot tell you. But so it is. It seems -to be disdainful of the earth houses of the Arabs, to be determined to -have nothing to do with them. And yet there is little reason in its -disdain.</p> -<p>For it, too, is built on sun-dried earth for the most part, and has only -the ground floor possessed by most of them. It stands facing flat but -not illimitable desert. The road that passes before it winds away to -land where there is water; and from the trellised arbour, but far off, -one can see in the sunshine the sharp, shrill green of crops, grown by -the Spahis whose tented camp lies to the right of the caravan track that -leads over the Col de Sfa to Biskra.</p> -<p>Far, far along that road one can see from the inn, till its whiteness is -as the whiteness of a thread, and any figures travelling upon it are -less than little dolls, and even a caravan is but a moving dimness -shrouded in a dimness of dust. But towards evening, when the strange -clearness of Africa becomes almost terribly acute, every speck upon the -thread has a meaning to attract the eye, and set the mind at work -asking:</p> -<p>“What is this that is coming upon the road? Who is this that travels? Is -it a mounted man on his thin horse, with his matchlock pointing to the -sky? Or is it a woman hunched upon a trotting donkey? Or a Nomad on his -camel? Or is it only some poor desert man, half naked in his rags, who -tramps on his bare brown feet along sun-baked track, his hood drawn -above his eyes, his knotted club in his hand?”</p> -<p>After ten years Madame Lemaire still asked herself such questions in the -arbour of the inn, when business was slack, when her husband was away, -or was lying half drunk upon the bed after an extra dose of absinthe, -and the one-eyed Arab servant, Hadj, was squatting on his haunches in a -corner smoking keef.</p> -<p>Not that the answer mattered at all to her. She expected nothing of the -road that led from the desert. But her mind, stagnant though it had -become in the solitude of Africa, had to do something to occupy itself. -And so she often stared across the plain, with an aimless “<i>Je me -demande</i>” trembling upon her lips, and a hard expression of inquiry in -her dark brown eyes, whose lids were seamed with tiny wrinkles. Perhaps -you will wonder why Madame Lemaire, having once had a passionate love -for pleasure and a strong will of her own, had consented to remain for -ten years in the solitude of El-Kelf, drudging in a miserable <i>auberge</i>, -to which few people, and those but poor ones, ever came.</p> -<p>Circumstances and Robert Lemaire had been too much for her. Both had -been cruel. She was something of a slave to both. Lemaire was an utter -failure, but there lurked within him still, under the waves of absinthe, -traces of the dominating power which had long ago made him a success.</p> -<p>Madame Lemaire had worshipped him once, had adored his strength and -beauty. They were gone now. He was a wreck. But he was a wreck with -fierceness in it. And command with him had become a habit. And Africa -bids one accept. And so Madame Lemaire had stayed for ten long years -drudging at the inn beside the salt mountain, and staring down the long -white road for the something strange and interesting from the desert -that never, never came.</p> -<p>And still Lemaire drank absinthe, and cursed and drowsed. For ten long -years! And still Hadj squatted upon his haunches and drugged himself -with keef. And still Madame Lemaire stood under the trellised vine, with -the sand-grains in her hair, and gazed and gazed over the plain.</p> -<p>And when a black speck appeared far off upon the whiteness of the track, -she watched it till her eyes ached, demanding who, or what, it -was—whether a Spahi on horseback, a woman on her donkey, a Nomad on his -camel, or some dark and half-naked pedestrian of the sands, that -travelled through the sunset glory towards the lonely inn.</p> -<p>Although Robert Lemaire was a wreck he was not an old man in years, only -forty-five, and the fine and tonic air of the Sahara preserved from -complete destruction. Shaggy and unkept he was, with a heavy bulk of -chest and shoulders, a large, pale face, and the angry and distressed -eyes of the absinthe slave. His hands trembled habitually, and on his -bad days fluttered like leaves. But there was still some force in his -prematurely aged body, still some will in his mind. He was a wreck, but -he was the wreck of one who had been really a man and accustomed to -dominate women. And this he did not forget.</p> -<p>One evening—it was in May, and the long heats of the desert had already -set in—Lemaire was away from the <i>auberge</i>, shooting near the salt -mountain with an acquaintance, a colonist who had a small farm not far -from Biskra, and who had come to spend the night at El-Kelf. This man -had a history. He had once been a hotel-keeper, and had reason to -suspect a guest in his hotel of having guilty intercourse with his wife.</p> -<p>One night, having discovered beyond possibility of doubt that his -suspicions were well founded, he waited till the hotel was closed, then -made his way to his guest’s room, and put three bullets into him as he -lay asleep in his bed. For this murder, or act of justice, he got only -ten months’ imprisonment. But his business as a hotel-keeper was ruined. -So now he was a small farmer. He was also, perhaps, the only real friend -Lemaire had in Africa, and he came occasionally to spend a night at the -Retour du Desert.</p> -<p>Upon this evening of May, Madame Lemaire was alone in the inn with the -one-eyed servant Hadj preparing supper for the two sportsmen. The flies -buzzed about under the dusty leaves of the vine, which were unstirred by -any breeze. The crystals upon the flanks of the salt mountain glittered -in the sun that was still fiery, though not far from its declining.</p> -<p>Upon the dry, earthen walls of the inn and over the stones of the court -round which it was built, the lizards crept, or rested with eager, -glancing patience, as if alert for further movement, but waiting for a -signal. A mule or two stamped in the long stable that was open to the -court, and a skeleton of a white Kabyle dog slunk to and fro searching -for scraps with his lips curled back from his pointed teeth.</p> -<p>And Madame Lemaire went slowly about her work with the sand-grains in -her hair, and the flies buzzing around her.</p> -<p>Nothing had happened. Nothing ever did happen at El-Kelf. But for some -mysterious reason Madame Lemaire suddenly felt to-day that her existence -in the desert had become insupportable. It may have been that Africa, -gradually draining away the Frenchwoman’s vitality, had on this day -removed the last little drop of the force that had, till now, enabled -her to face her life, however dully, however wearily.</p> -<p>It may have been that there was some peculiar and unusual heaviness in -the air that was generally of a feathery lightness. Or the reason may -have been mental, and Africa may have drawn from this victim’s nature, -on this particular day, a grain, small as a grain of sand, of will-power -that was absolutely necessary for the keeping of the woman’s stamina -upon its feet.</p> -<p>However it was, she felt that she collapsed. She did not cry. She did -not curse. She did not faint, or lie down and stare with desperate eyes -at the vacant dying day. She did not neglect her domestic duties, and -was even now tearing, with a flat key, the cover from some tinned veal -and ham for the evening’s supper. But something within her had abruptly -raised its voice. She seemed to hear it saying: “I can’t bear any more!” -and to know that it spoke the truth. No longer could she bear it: the -African sun on the brown-earth walls, the settling of the sand-grains in -her hair, the movement of the flies about her face, wrinkled prematurely -by the perpetual dry heat and by the desert winds; the brazen sky above -her, the iron land beneath, the silence—like the silence that was before -creation, or the monotonous sounds that broke it; the mule’s stamp on -the stones, the barking of the guard-dogs upon the palm roofs of the -distant houses in the village, the sneering laugh of the jackals by -night, that whining song of Hadj, as he wagged his shaven head over the -pipe-bowl into which he pressed the keef that was bringing him to -madness.</p> -<p>She could not bear it any more.</p> -<p>The look in her face scarcely altered. The corners of her mouth, long -since grown grim, did not droop any more than usual. Her thin, hard -hands were steady as they did their dreary work. But the woman who had -resisted somehow during ten terrible years of incomparable monotony -suddenly died within Marie Lemaire, and the girl of Marseilles, Marie -Bretelle, shrieked out in the middle-aged, haggard body.</p> -<p>“This fate was not meant for me. I cannot bear it any more.”</p> -<p>Presently the tin which had held the veal and ham was empty, save for -some bits of opaque jelly that still clung round its edges; and Madame -Lemaire went over to the dimly burning charcoal with a dirty old pan in -her hand.</p> -<p>Marie Bretelle was still shrieking out, but Madame Lemaire must get -ready the supper for her absinthe-soaked husband, and his friend the -murderer from Alfa.</p> -<p>The sportsmen were late in returning, and Madame Lemaire’s task was -finished before they came. She had nothing more to do, and she came out -to the arbour that looked upon the road. Here there was an old table -stained with the lees of wine. About it stood three or four rickety -chairs. Madame Lemaire sat down—dropped down, rather—on one of these, -laid her arms upon the table, and gazed down the empty road.</p> -<p>“<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” she said to herself. “<i>Mon Dieu!</i>” She beat one hand on -the table and said it aloud.</p> -<p>“<i>Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!</i>”</p> -<p>She stared up at the vine. The leaves were sandy, and she saw insects -running over them. She watched them. What were they doing? What purpose -could they have? What purpose could anything have?</p> -<p>Always the hand tapped, tapped upon the table.</p> -<p>And Marseilles! It was still there by the sea, crowded, gay with life. -This was the time when the life began to grow turbulent. The cascades -were roaring under the lifted gardens, where the beasts roamed in their -cages. The awnings were out over the cafés in that city of cafés. She -could almost see the coloured edges of stuff fluttering in the wind that -came from the arbour and from the Château d’If. There was a sound of -hammering along the sea. They were putting up the bathing sheds for the -season. It would be good to go into the sea. It would cool one.</p> -<p>A beetle dropped from the vine on to the table, close to the beating -hand. Madame Lemaire started violently. She got up, and went to stand in -the entrance of the arbour. Marseilles was gone now. Africa was there.</p> -<p>For ten years she had been looking down the road. She looked down it -once more.</p> -<p>It was the wonderful evening hour when Africa seems to lift itself -toward the light, reluctant to be given to the darkness. Very far one -could see, and with an almost supernatural distinctness. Yet Madame -Lemaire strained her eyes, as people do at dusk when they strive to -pierce a veil of gathering darkness.</p> -<p>What was coming along the road?</p> -<p>Her gaze travelled onwards over the hard and barren plain till it -reached the green crops, on and on past the tents of the Spahis’ -encampment, near which rose a trail of smoke into the lucent air; -farther still, farther and farther, until the whiteness narrowed towards -the mountains, and at last was lost to sight.</p> -<p>And this evening, perhaps because she longed so much for something, for -anything, there was nothing on the road. It was a white emptiness under -the setting sun.</p> -<p>Then the woman felt frantic, and she beat her hands together, and she -cried aloud:</p> -<p>“If the Devil himself would only come along the road and ask me to go -from this cursed hole of a place, I’d go with him! I’d go! I’d go!”</p> -<p>She repeated it shrilly, making wild gestures with her hands towards the -desert. Her face was twisted awry. She looked just then like a desperate -hag of a woman.</p> -<p>But it was the girl of Marseilles who was crying out in her. It was -Marie Bretelle who was demanding the joys she had flung away in her -youth for the sake of a handsome face.</p> -<p>“I’d go! I’d go!”</p> -<p>The shrill cry went up to the setting sun. But no one answered, and -nothing darkened the arid whiteness of the road that wound across the -plain and passed before the inn-door.</p> -<h3>2</h3> -<p>Night had fallen when the two sportsmen rode in on mules, tired and -hungry. Hadj came from his keef to take the beasts, Madame Lemaire from -her kitchen to ask if there were any birds for her to cook. Her husband -gave her a string of them, and she turned away from him without a word, -and went back into the house.</p> -<p>There was nothing odd in this, but something in his wife’s face, seen -only for a moment in the darkness of the court, had startled Lemaire, -and he looked after her as if he were inclined to call her back; then -said to his companion, Jacques Bouvier:</p> -<p>“Did you see Marie?”</p> -<p>“Yes. She looks as if she had just stumbled over a jackal,” and he -laughed.</p> -<p>Lemaire stood for a minute where he was. Then he shouted to Hadj:</p> -<p>“Hadj! A—Hadj!”</p> -<p>The one-eyed keef-smoker came.</p> -<p>“Who has been here to-day?”</p> -<p>“No one. A few have passed the door, but no one has entered.”</p> -<p>“Good business!” said Bouvier, shrugging his shoulders.</p> -<p>“Business!” exclaimed Lemaire, with an oath. “It’s a fine business we do -here. Another ten years, and we shan’t have put by ten sous.”</p> -<p>“Perhaps that is why madame has such a face to-night!”</p> -<p>“We’ll see at supper. Now for an absinthe!”</p> -<p>The two men walked stiffly into the inn, put their guns in a corner, -went into the arbour that fronted the desert, and sat down by the table.</p> -<p>“Marie!” bawled Lemaire.</p> -<p>He struck his flabby fist down upon the wood.</p> -<p>“Marie, the absinthe!”</p> -<p>Madame Lemaire heard the hoarse shout in the kitchen, and her face went -awry again:</p> -<p>“I’d go! I’d go!”</p> -<p>She hissed it under her breath.</p> -<p>“<i>Sacré nom de Dieu!</i> Marie!”</p> -<p>“<i>V’là!</i>”</p> -<p>“The devil! What a voice!” said Bouvier in the arbour.</p> -<p>Lemaire was half turned in his chair. His hands were slightly shaking, -and his large white face, with its angry and distressed eyes, looked -startled.</p> -<p>“Who was that?” he said, moving in his chair as if he were going to get -up.</p> -<p>“Who? Your wife!”</p> -<p>“No, it wasn’t!”</p> -<p>“Well, then——”</p> -<p>At this moment there was a clink and a rattle, and Madame Lemaire came -slowly out from the inn, carrying a tray with an absinthe bottle, a -bottle of water, and two thick glasses with china saucers. She set it -down between the two men. Her husband stared at her like one who stares -suspiciously at a stranger.</p> -<p>“Was that you who called out?” he asked.</p> -<p>“Of course! Who else should it be? Who ever comes here?”</p> -<p>“Madame is a bit sick of El-Kelf,” said Bouvier. “That’s what is the -matter.”</p> -<p>Madame Lemaire compressed her lips tightly and said nothing.</p> -<p>Her husband looked more suspicious.</p> -<p>“Why should she be sick of it? She’s done very well with it for ten -years,” he said roughly.</p> -<p>Madame Lemaire turned away and left the arbour. She was wearing slippers -without heels, and went softly.</p> -<p>The two men sat in silence, looking at each other. A breath of wind, the -first that had come that day, stole from the desert and rustled the -leaves of the vine above their heads. Lemaire stretched out his -trembling hand to the absinthe bottle.</p> -<p>“For God’s sake let’s have a drink!” he said. “There’s something about -my wife that’s given my blood a turn.”</p> -<p>“Beat her!” said Bouvier, pushing forward his glass. “If you don’t beat -them be sure they’ll betray you.”</p> -<p>His wife’s treachery had set him against all women. Lemaire growled -something inarticulate. He was thinking of the days in Algiers, of their -strange and often disgraceful existence there. Bouvier knew nothing of -that.</p> -<p>“Come on!” he said.</p> -<p>And he lifted his glass of absinthe to his lips.</p> -<p>At supper that night Lemaire perpetually watched his wife. She seemed to -be just as usual. For years there had been a sort of sickly weariness -upon her face. It was there now. For years there had been a dull sound -in her voice. He heard it to-night. For years she had had a poor -appetite. She ate little at supper, had her habitual manner of -swallowing almost with difficulty. Surely she was just as usual.</p> -<p>And yet she was not—she was not!</p> -<p>After supper the two men returned to the arbour to smoke and drink, and -Madame Lemaire remained in the kitchen to clear away and wash up.</p> -<p>“Isn’t there something the matter with my wife?” asked Lemaire, lighting -a thin, black cigar, and settling his loose, bulky body in the small -chair, with his fat legs stretched out, and one foot crossed over the -other. “Or is it that I’m out of sorts to-night? It seems to me as if -she were strange.”</p> -<p>Bouvier was a small, pinched man, with a narrow face, evenly red in -colour, large ears that stood out from his closely shaven head, and -hot-looking, prominent brown eyes.</p> -<p>“Perhaps she’s taken with some Arab,” he said.</p> -<p>“P’f! She’s dropped all that nonsense. The devil! A woman of forty’s an -old woman in Africa.”</p> -<p>Bouvier spat.</p> -<p>“Isn’t she?”</p> -<p>“Oh, don’t ask me about women. Young or old, they’re always calling the -Devil to their elbow.”</p> -<p>“What for?”</p> -<p>“To put them up to wickedness. Perhaps your wife’s been calling him -to-night. You look behind her presently, and you may catch a sight of -him. He’s always about where women are.”</p> -<p>“Ha, ha, ha!”</p> -<p>Lemaire laughed mirthlessly.</p> -<p>“D’you think he’d show himself to me?”</p> -<p>He emptied his glass. Bouvier suddenly looked terrible—looked like the -man who had put three bullets into his sleeping guest.</p> -<p>“How did I know?” he said.</p> -<p>He leaned across the table towards Lemaire.</p> -<p>“How did I know?” he repeated in a low voice.</p> -<p>“What—when your wife——”</p> -<p>“Yes. They didn’t let me see anything. They were too sharp. No; it was -one night I saw <i>him</i>, with his mouth at her ear, coming in behind her -through the door like a shadow. There!”</p> -<p>He sat back with his hands on his knees. Lemaire stared at him again.</p> -<p>Again the wind rustled furtively through the diseased vine-leaves of the -arbour.</p> -<p>“It was then that I got out my revolver and charged it,” continued -Bouvier, in a less mysterious voice, as of one returned to practical -life. “For I knew she’d been up to some villainy. Pass the bottle!”...</p> -<p>“Pass the bottle!... Why don’t you pass the bottle?”</p> -<p>“Pardon!”</p> -<p>Lemaire pushed the bottle over to his friend.</p> -<p>“What’s the matter with you to-night?”</p> -<p>“Nothing. You mean to say ... why d’you talk such nonsense? D’you think -I’m a fool to be taken in by rubbish like that?”</p> -<p>“Well, then, why did you sit just as if you’d seen him?”</p> -<p>“I’m a bit tired to-night, that’s what it is. We went a long way. The -wine’ll pull me together.”</p> -<p>He poured out another glass.</p> -<p>“You don’t mean to say,” he continued, “you believe in the Devil?”</p> -<p>“Don’t you?”</p> -<p>“No.”</p> -<p>“Why not?”</p> -<p>“Why not! Why should I? Nobody does—me, I mean. That sort of thing is -all very well for women.”</p> -<p>Bouvier said nothing, but sat with his arms on the table, staring out -towards the desert. He looked at the empty road just in front of him, -let his eyes travel along until it disappeared into the night.</p> -<p>“I say, that sort of thing is all very well for women,” repeated -Lemaire.</p> -<p>“I hear you.”</p> -<p>“But I want to know whether you don’t think the same.”</p> -<p>“As you?”</p> -<p>“Yes; to be sure.”</p> -<p>“I might have done once.”</p> -<p>“But you don’t now?”</p> -<p>“There’s a devil in the desert; that’s certain.”</p> -<p>“Why?”</p> -<p>“Because I tell you he came out of the desert to turn my wife wrong.”</p> -<p>“Then you weren’t joking?”</p> -<p>“Not I. It’s as true as that I went and charged my revolver, because I -saw what I told you. Here’s Madame coming out to join us.”</p> -<p>Lemaire shifted heavily and abruptly in his chair.</p> -<p>“Hallo!” he said, in a brutal tone of voice. “What’s up with you -to-night?”</p> -<p>As he spoke he stared hard at his wife’s shoulder, just by her ear.</p> -<p>“Nothing. What are you looking at? There isn’t——”</p> -<p>She put up her hand quickly to her shoulder and felt over her dress.</p> -<p>“Ugh!” She shook herself. “I thought you’d seen a scorpion on me.”</p> -<p>Bouvier, whose red face seemed to be deepening in colour under the -influence of the red Algerian wine, burst out laughing.</p> -<p>“It wasn’t a scorpion he was looking for,” he exclaimed. His thin body -shook with mirth till his chair creaked under him.</p> -<p>“It wasn’t a scorpion,” he repeated.</p> -<p>“What was it, then?” said Madame Lemaire.</p> -<p>She looked from one man to the other—from the one who was strange in his -laughter, to the other who was even stranger in his gravity.</p> -<p>“What have you been saying about me?” she said, with a flare-up of -suspicion.</p> -<p>“Well,” said Bouvier, recovering himself a little, “if you must know, we -were talking about the Devil.”</p> -<p>The woman stared and gave the table a shake. Some of her husband’s wine -was spilled over it.</p> -<p>“The Devil take you!” he bawled with sudden fury.</p> -<p>“I only wish he would!”</p> -<p>The two men jumped back as if a viper of the sands had suddenly reared -up its thin head between them.</p> -<p>“I only wish he would!”</p> -<p>It was Marie Bretelle who had spoken, the girl of Marseilles, who still -lived in the body of Marie Lemaire. But it was Marie Lemaire from whom -the two men shrank away—Marie Lemaire changed, startling, terrible, her -haggard face furious with expression, her thin hands clutching at the -edge of the table, from which the wine-bottle had fallen, to be smashed -at their feet.</p> -<p>For a moment there was a dead silence succeeding that second shrill cry. -Then Lemaire scrambled up heavily from his chair.</p> -<p>“What do you mean?” he stammered. “What do you mean?”</p> -<p>And then she told him, like a fury, and with the words which had surely -been accumulating in her mind, like water behind a dam, for ten years. -She told him what she had wanted, and what she had had. And when at last -she had finished telling him, she stood for a minute, making mouths at -him in silence, as if she still had something to say, some final word of -summing up.</p> -<p>“Stop that!”</p> -<p>It was Lemaire who spoke; and as he spoke he thrust out one of his -white, shaking hands to cover that nightmare mouth. But she beat his -hand down, and screamed, with the gesture.</p> -<p>“And if the Devil himself would come along the road to fetch me from -this cursed place, I’d go with him! D’you hear? I’d go with him! I’d go -with him!”</p> -<p>When the scream died away, one-eyed Hadj was standing at the entrance to -the arbour. Madame Lemaire felt that he was there, turned round, and saw -him.</p> -<p>“I’d go with him if he was an Arab,” she said, but almost muttering now, -for her voice had suddenly failed her, though her passion was still -red-hot. “Even the Arabs—they’re better than you, absinthe-soaked, -do-nothing Roumis, who sit and drink, drink——”</p> -<p>Her voice cracked, went into a whisper, disappeared. She thrust out her -hand, swept the glasses off the table to follow the bottle, turned, and -went out of the arbour softly on her slippered feet.</p> -<p>And one-eyed Hadj stood there laughing, for he understood French very -well, although he was half mad with keef.</p> -<p>“She’d go with an Arab!” he repeated. “She’d go with an Arab!” And then -he saw his master.</p> -<p>The two Frenchmen sat staring at one another across the empty table -under the shivering vine-leaves, which were now stirred continually by -the wind of night. Lemaire’s large face had gone a dusky grey. About his -eyes there was a tinge of something that was almost lead colour. His -loose mouth had dropped, and the lower lip disclosed his decayed teeth. -His hands, laid upon the table as if for support, shook and jumped, were -never still even for a second.</p> -<p>Bouvier was almost purple. Veins stood out about his forehead. The blood -had gone to his ears and to his eyes. Now he leaned across to Lemaire.</p> -<p>“Beat her!” he said. “Beat her for that! Hadj heard her. If you don’t -beat her, the Arabs——”</p> -<p>But before he had finished the sentence Lemaire had got up, with a wild -gesture of his shaking hand, and gone unsteadily into the house.</p> -<p>That night Madame Lemaire suffered at the hands of her husband, while -Bouvier and Hadj listened in the darkness of the court.</p> -<h3>3</h3> -<p>It was drawing towards evening on the following day, and Madame Lemaire -was quite alone in the inn. Hadj had gone to the village for some more -keef, and Lemaire and Bouvier had set out together in the morning for -Batna.</p> -<p>So she was quite alone. Her face was bruised and discoloured near the -right eye. Her head ached. She felt immensely listless. To-day there was -no activity in her misery. It seemed a slow-witted, lethargic thing, -undeserving even of respect.</p> -<p>There were no customers. There was nothing to do, absolutely nothing. -She went heavily into the arbour, and sank down upon a chair. At first -she sat upright. But presently she spread her arms out upon the table, -and laid her discoloured face on them, and remained so for a long time.</p> -<p>Any traveller, passing by on the road from the desert, would have -thought that she was asleep. But she was not asleep. Nor had she slept -all night. It is not easy to sleep after such punishment as she had -received.</p> -<p>And no traveller passed by.</p> -<p>The flies, finding that the woman kept quite still, settled upon her -face, her hair, her hands, cleaned themselves, stretched their legs and -wings, went to and fro busily upon her. She never moved to drive them -away.</p> -<p>She was not thinking just then. She was only feeling—feeling how she was -alone, feeling that this enormous sun-dried land was about her, -stretching away to right and left of her, behind her and before, feeling -that in all this enormous, sun-dried land there was nobody who wanted -her, nobody thinking of her, nobody coming towards her to take her away -into a different life, into a life that she could bear.</p> -<p>All this she was dully feeling.</p> -<p>Perfectly still were the diseased vine-leaves above her head, motionless -as she was. On them the insects went to and fro, actively leading their -mysterious lives, as the flies went to and fro on her.</p> -<p>For a long time she remained thus. All the white road was empty before -her as far as eye could see. No trail of smoke went up by the growing -crops beside the distant tents of the Spahis. It seemed as if man had -abandoned Africa, leaving only one of God’s creatures there, this woman -who leaned across the discoloured table with her bruised face hidden on -her arms.</p> -<p>The hour before sunset approached, the miraculous hour of the day, when -Africa seems to lift itself towards the light that will soon desert it, -as if it could not bear to let the glory go, as if it would not consent -to be hidden in the night. Upon the salt mountain the crystals -glittered.</p> -<p>The details of the land began to live as they had not lived all day. The -wonderful clearness came, in which all things seem filled with -supernatural meaning. And, even in the dullness of her misery, habit -took hold of Madame Lemaire.</p> -<p>She lifted her head from her arms, and she stared down the long white -road. Her gaze travelled. It started from the patch of glaring white -before the arbour, and it went away like one who goes to a tryst. It -went down the road, and on, and on. It reached the green of the crops. -It passed the Spahis’ tents. It moved towards the distant mountains that -hid the plains and the palms of Biskra.</p> -<p>The flies buzzed into the air.</p> -<p>Madame Lemaire had got up from her seat. With her hands laid flat upon -the table she stared at the thread of white that was the limit of her -vision. Then she lifted her hands and curved them, and put them above -her eyes to form a shade. And then she moved and came out to the -entrance of the arbour.</p> -<p>She had seen a black speck upon the road.</p> -<p>There was dust around it. As so often before she asked herself the -question: “Who is it coming towards the inn from the desert?” But to-day -she asked herself the question as she had never asked it before, with a -sort of violence, with a passionate eagerness, with a leaping -expectation. And she stepped right out into the road, as if she would go -and meet the traveller, would hasten with stretched-out hands as to some -welcome friend.</p> -<p>The sun dropped its burning rays upon her hair, and she realised her -folly, took her hands from her eyes, and laughed to herself. Then she -went back to the arbour and stood by the table waiting. Slowly—very -slowly it seemed to Madame Lemaire—the black speck grew larger on the -white. But there was very much dust to-day, and always the misty cloud -was round it, stirred up by—was it a camel’s padding feet, or the hoofs -of a horse, or—? She could not tell yet, but soon she would be able to -tell.</p> -<p>Now it was approaching the watered land, was not far from the Spahis’ -tents. And a great fear came upon her that it might turn aside to them, -that it might be perhaps a Spahi riding home from his patrol of the -desert. She felt that she could not bear to be alone any longer; that if -she could not see and speak to someone before sunset she must go mad.</p> -<p>The traveller passed before the Spahis’ camp without turning aside; and -now the dust was less, and Madame Lemaire could see that it was a Nomad -mounted on a camel.</p> -<p>With a smothered exclamation she hurried into the inn. A sudden resolve -possessed her. She would prepare a couscous. And then, if the Nomad -desired to pass on without entering the inn, she would detain him.</p> -<p>She would offer him a couscous for nothing, only she must have company. -Whoever the stranger was, however poor, however filthy, ragged, hideous, -or even terrible, he must stay a while at the inn, distract her thoughts -for an instant.</p> -<p>Without that she would go mad.</p> -<p>Quickly she began her preparations. There was time. He could not be here -for twenty minutes yet, and the meal for a couscous was all ready. She -had only to——</p> -<p>She moved frantically about the kitchen.</p> -<p>Twenty minutes later she heard the peevish roar of a camel from the -road, and ran out to meet the Nomad, carrying the couscous. As she came -into the arbour she noticed that it was already dark outside.</p> -<p>The night had fallen suddenly.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>That night, as Lemaire and Bouvier were nearing the inn, riding slowly -upon their mules, they heard before them in the darkness the angry -snarling of a camel.</p> -<p>Almost immediately it died away.</p> -<p>“Madame has company,” said Bouvier. “There’s a customer at the Retour du -Desert.”</p> -<p>“Some damned Arab!” said Lemaire. “Come for a coffee or a couscous. Much -good that’ll do us!”</p> -<p>They rode on in silence. When they reached the inn, the road before it -was empty.</p> -<p>“<i>Mai foi</i>,” said Bouvier. “Nobody here! The camel was getting up, then, -and Madame is alone again.”</p> -<p>“Marie!” called Lemaire. “Marie! The absinthe!”</p> -<p>There was no reply.</p> -<p>“Marie! <i>Nom d’un chien!</i> Marie! The absinthe! Marie!”</p> -<p>He let his heavy body down from the mule.</p> -<p>“Where the devil is she? Marie! Marie!”</p> -<p>He went into the arbour, stumbled over something, and uttered a curse.</p> -<p>In reply to it there was a shrill and prolonged howl from the court.</p> -<p>“What is it? What’s the dog up to?” said Bouvier, whipping out his -revolver and following Lemaire. “The table knocked over! What’s up? -D’you think there’s anything wrong?”</p> -<p>The Kabyle dog howled again, slunk into the arbour from the court, and -pressed itself against Lemaire’s legs. He gave it a kick in the ribs -that sent it yelping into the night.</p> -<p>“Marie! Marie!”</p> -<p>There was the anger of alarm in his voice now; but no one answered his -call.</p> -<p>Walking furtively, the two men passed through the doorway into the -kitchen. Lemaire struck a match, lit a candle, took it in his hand, and -they searched the inn, and the court, then returned to the arbour. In -the arbour, close to the overturned table, they found a broken bowl, -with a couscous scattered over the earth beside it. Several vine-leaves -were trodden into the ground near by.</p> -<p>“Someone’s been here,” said Lemaire, staring at Bouvier in the -candlelight, which flickered in his angry and distressed eyes. -“Someone’s been. She was bringing him a couscous. See here!”</p> -<p>He pointed with his foot.</p> -<p>Bouvier laughed uneasily.</p> -<p>“Perhaps,” he said—“perhaps it was the Devil come for her. You remember! -She said last night, if he came, she’d go with him.”</p> -<p>The candle dropped from Lemaire’s shaking hand.</p> -<p>“Damn you! Why d’you talk like that?” he exclaimed furiously. “She must -be somewhere about. Let’s have an absinthe. Perhaps she’s gone to the -village.”</p> -<p>They had an absinthe and searched once more.</p> -<p>Presently Hadj, who was half mad with keef, joined them. The rumour of -what was going forward had got about in the village; and other Arabs -glided noiselessly through the night to share in the absinthe and the -quest, for that night Lemaire forgot to lock up the bottle.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>But the hostess of the inn at El-Kelf has not been seen again.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Crucifixion of the Outcast' id='s4'>THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE OUTCAST</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By W. B. YEATS</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>The Secret Rose</i>, by W. B. Yeats. Copyright, 1914, by the -Macmillan Company.</p> -<p>A man, with thin brown hair and a pale face, half ran, half walked along -the road that wound from the south to the Town of the Shelly River. Many -called him Cumhal, the son of Cormac, and many called him the Swift, -Wild Horse; and he was a gleeman, and he wore a short parti-coloured -doublet, and had pointed shoes, and a bulging wallet. Also he was of the -blood of the Ernaans, and his birth-place was the Field of Gold; but his -eating and sleeping places were the four provinces of Eri, and his -abiding place was not upon the ridge of the earth. His eyes strayed from -the Abbey tower of the White Friars and the town battlements to a row of -crosses which stood out against the sky upon a hill a little to the -eastward of the town, and he clenched his fist, and shook it at the -crosses. He knew they were not empty, for the birds were fluttering -about them; and he thought, how, as like as not, just such another -vagabond as himself was hanged on one of them; and he muttered; “If it -were hanging or bow-stringing, or stoning or beheading, it would be bad -enough. But to have the birds pecking your eyes and the wolves eating -your feet! I would that the red wind of the Druids had withered in his -cradle the soldier of Dathi, who brought the tree of death out of -barbarous lands, or that the lightning, when it smote Dathi at the foot -of the mountain, had smitten him also, or that his grave had been dug by -the green-haired and green-toothed merrows deep at the roots of the deep -sea.”</p> -<p>While he spoke, he shivered from head to foot, and the sweat came out -upon his face, and he knew not why, for he had looked upon many crosses. -He passed over two hills and under the battlemented gate, and then round -by a left-hand way to the door of the Abbey. It was studded with great -nails, and when he knocked at it, he roused the lay brother who was the -porter, and of him he asked a place in the guest-house. Then the lay -brother took a glowing turf on a shovel, and led the way to a big and -naked outhouse strewn with dirty rushes: and lighted a rush-candle fixed -between two of the stones of the wall, and set the glowing turf upon the -hearth and gave him two unlighted sods and a wisp of straw, and showed -him a blanket hanging from a nail, and a shelf with a loaf of bread and -a jug of water, and a tub in a far corner. Then the lay brother left him -and went back to his place by the door. And Cumhal the son of Cormac -began to blow upon the glowing turf, that he might light the two sods -and the wisp of straw; but his blowing profited him nothing, for the -sods and the straw were damp. So he took off his pointed shoes, and drew -the tub out of the corner with the thought of washing the dust of the -highway from his feet; but the water was so dirty that he could not see -the bottom. He was very hungry, for he had not eaten all that day; so he -did not waste much anger upon the tub, but took up the black loaf, and -bit into it, and then spat out the bite, for the bread was hard and -mouldy. Still he did not give way to his wrath, for he had not drunken -these many hours; having a hope of heath beer or wine at his day’s end, -he had left the brooks untasted, to make his supper the more delightful. -Now he put the jug to his lips, but he flung it from him straightway, -for the water was bitter and ill-smelling. Then he gave the jug a kick, -so that it broke against the opposite wall, and he took down the blanket -to wrap it about him for the night. But no sooner did he touch it than -it was alive with skipping fleas. At this, beside himself with anger, he -rushed to the door of the guest-house, but the lay brother, being well -accustomed to such outcries, had locked it on the outside; so Cumhal -emptied the tub and began to beat the door with it, till the lay brother -came to the door, and asked what ailed him, and why he woke him out of -sleep. “What ails me!” shouted Cumhal, “are not the sods as wet as the -sands of the Three Headlands? and are not the fleas in the blanket as -many as the waves of the sea and as lively? and is not the bread as hard -as the heart of a lay brother who has forgotten God? and is not the -water in the jug as bitter and as ill-smelling as his soul? and is not -the foot-water the colour that shall be upon him when he has been -charred in the Undying Fires?” The lay brother saw that the lock was -fast, and went back to his niche, for he was too sleepy to talk with -comfort. And Cumhal went on beating at the door, and presently he heard -the lay brother’s foot once more, and cried out at him, “O cowardly and -tyrannous race of friars, persecutors of the bard and the gleeman, -haters of life and joy! O race that does not draw the sword and tell the -truth! O race that melts the bones of the people with cowardice and with -deceit!”</p> -<p>“Gleeman,” said the lay brother, “I also make rhymes; I make many while -I sit in my niche by the door, and I sorrow to hear the bards railing -upon the friars. Brother, I would sleep, and therefore I make known to -you that it is the head of the monastery, our gracious Coarb, who orders -all things concerning the lodging of travellers.”</p> -<p>“You may sleep,” said Cumhal, “I will sing a bard’s curse on the Coarb.” -And he set the tub outside down under the window, and stood upon it, and -began to sing in a very loud voice. The singing awoke the Coarb, so that -he sat up in bed and blew a silver whistle until the lay brother came to -him. “I cannot get a wink of sleep with that noise,” said the Coarb. -“What is happening?”</p> -<p>“It is a gleeman,” said the lay brother, “who complains of the sods, of -the bread, of the water in the jug, of the foot-water, and of the -blanket. And now he is singing a bard’s curse upon you, O brother Coarb, -and upon your father and your mother, and your grandfather and your -grandmother, and upon all your relations.”</p> -<p>“Is he cursing in rhyme?”</p> -<p>“He is cursing in rhyme, and with two assonances in every line of his -curse.”</p> -<p>The Coarb pulled his night-cap off and crumpled it in his hands, and the -circular brown patch of hair in the middle of his bald head looked like -an island in the midst of a pond, for in Connaught they had not yet -abandoned the ancient tonsure for the style then coming into use. “If we -do not somewhat,” he said, “he will teach his curses to the children in -the street, and the girls spinning at the doors, and to the robbers on -the mountain of Gulben.”</p> -<p>“Shall I go then,” said the other, “and give him dry sods, a fresh loaf, -clean water in a jug, clean foot-water, and a new blanket, and make him -swear by the blessed St. Benignus, and by the sun and moon, that no bond -be lacking, not to tell his rhymes to the children in the street, and -the girls spinning at the doors, and the robbers on the mountain of -Gulben?”</p> -<p>“Neither our blessed Patron nor the sun and the moon would avail at -all,” said the Coarb: “for to-morrow or the next day the mood to curse -would come upon him, or a pride in those rhymes would move him, and he -would teach his lines to the children, and the girls, and the robbers. -Or else he would tell another of his craft how he fared in the -guest-house, and he in his turn would begin to curse, and my name would -wither. For learn there is no steadfastness of purpose upon the roads, -but only under roofs, and between four walls. Therefore I bid you go and -awaken Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, Brother Bald -Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother Peter. And they -shall take the man, and bind him with ropes, and dip him in the river -that he may cease to sing. And in the morning, lest this but make him -curse the louder, we will crucify him.”</p> -<p>“The crosses are all full,” said the lay brother.</p> -<p>“Then we must make another cross. If we do not make an end of him -another will, for who can eat and sleep in peace while men like him are -going about the world? Ill should we stand before blessed St. Benignus, -and sour would be his face when he comes to judge us at the Last Day, -were we to spare an enemy of his when we had him under our thumb! -Brother, the bards and the gleemen are an evil race, ever cursing and -ever stirring up the people, and immoral and immoderate in all things, -and heathen in their hearts, always longing after the Son of Lir, and -Angus, and Bridget, and the Dagda, and Dana the Mother, and all the -false gods of the old days; always making poems in praise of those kings -and queens of the demons, Finvaragh of the Hill in the Plain, and Red -Aodh of the Hill of the Shee, and Cleena of the Wave, and Eiveen of the -Grey Rock, and him they call Don of the Vats of the Sea; and railing -against God and Christ and the blessed Saints.” While he was speaking he -crossed himself, and when he had finished he drew the night-cap over his -ears, to shut out the noise, and closed his eyes, and composed himself -to sleep.</p> -<p>The lay brother found Brother Kevin, Brother Dove, Brother Little Wolf, -Brother Bald Patrick, Brother Bald Brandon, Brother James and Brother -Peter sitting up in bed, and he made them get up. Then they bound -Cumhal, and they dragged him to the river, and they dipped him in at the -place which was afterwards called Buckley’s Ford.</p> -<p>“Gleeman,” said the lay brother, as they led him back to the -guest-house, “why do you ever use the wit which God has given you to -make blasphemous and immoral tales and verses? For such is the way of -your craft. I have, indeed, many such tales and verses well nigh by -rote, and so I know that I speak true! And why do you praise with rhyme -those demons, Finvaragh, Red Aodh, Cleena, Eiveen and Don? I, too, am a -man of great wit and learning, but I ever glorify our gracious Coarb, -and Benignus our Patron, and the princes of the province. My soul is -decent and orderly, but yours is like the wind among the salley gardens. -I said what I could for you, being also a man of many thoughts, but who -could help such a one as you?”</p> -<p>“My soul, friend,” answered the gleeman, “is indeed like the wind, and -it blows me to and fro, and up and down, and puts many things into my -mind and out of my mind, and therefore am I called the Swift, Wild -Horse.” And he spoke no more that night, for his teeth were chattering -with the cold.</p> -<p>The Coarb and the friars came to him in the morning, and bade him get -ready to be crucified, and led him out of the guest-house. And while he -still stood upon the step a flock of great grass-barnacles passed high -above him with clanking cries. He lifted his arms to them and said, “O -great grass-barnacles, tarry a little, and mayhap my soul will travel -with you to the waste places of the shore and to the ungovernable sea!” -At the gate a crowd of beggars gathered about them, being come there to -beg from any traveller or pilgrim who might have spent the night in the -guest-house. The Coarb and the friars led the gleeman to a place in the -woods at some distance, where many straight young trees were growing, -and they made him cut one down and fashion it to the right length, while -the beggars stood round them in a ring, talking and gesticulating. The -Coarb then bade him cut off another and shorter piece of wood, and nail -it upon the first. So there was his cross for him; and they put it upon -his shoulder, for his crucifixion was to be on the top of the hill where -the others were. A half-mile on the way he asked them to stop and see -him juggle for them: for he knew, he said, all the tricks of Angus the -Subtle-Hearted. The old friars were for pressing on, but the young -friars would see him: so he did many wonders for them, even to the -drawing of live frogs out of his ears. But after a while they turned on -him, and said his tricks were dull and a shade unholy, and set the cross -on his shoulders again. Another half-mile on the way, and he asked them -to stop and hear him jest for them, for he knew, he said, all the jests -of Conan the Bald, upon whose back a sheep’s wool grew. And the young -friars, when they had heard his merry tales, again bade him take up his -cross, for it ill became them to listen to such follies. Another -half-mile on the way, he asked them to stop and hear him sing the story -of White-Breasted Deirdre, and how she endured many sorrows, and how the -sons of Usna died to serve her. And the young friars were mad to hear -him, but when he had ended, they grew angry, and beat him for waking -forgotten longings in their hearts. So they set the cross upon his back, -and hurried him to the hill.</p> -<p>When he was come to the top, they took the cross from him, and began to -dig a hole to stand it in, while the beggars gathered round, and talked -among themselves. “I ask a favour before I die,” says Cumhal.</p> -<p>“We will grant you no more delays,” says the Coarb.</p> -<p>“I ask no more delays, for I have drawn the sword, and told the truth, -and lived my vision and am content.”</p> -<p>“Would you then confess?”</p> -<p>“By sun and moon, not I; I ask but to be let eat the food I carry in my -wallet. I carry food in my wallet whenever I go upon a journey, but I do -not taste of it unless I am well-nigh starved. I have not eaten now -these two days.”</p> -<p>“You may eat, then,” says the Coarb, and he turned to help the friars -dig the hole.</p> -<p>The gleeman took a loaf and some strips of cold fried bacon out of his -wallet and laid them upon the ground. “I will give a tithe to the poor,” -says he, and he cut a tenth part from the loaf and the bacon. “Who among -you is the poorest?” And thereupon was a great clamour, for the beggars -began the history of their sorrows and their poverty, and their yellow -faces swayed like the Shelly River when the floods have filled it with -water from the bogs.</p> -<p>He listened for a little, and, says he, “I am myself the poorest, for I -have travelled the bare road, and by the glittering footsteps of the -sea; and the tattered doublet of parti-coloured cloth upon my back, and -the torn pointed shoes upon my feet have ever irked me, because of the -towered city full of noble raiment which was in my heart. And I have -been the more alone upon the roads and by the sea, because I heard in my -heart the rustling of the rose-bordered dress of her who is more subtle -than Angus, the Subtle-Hearted, and more full of the beauty of laughter -than Conan the Bald, and more full of the wisdom of tears than -White-Breasted Deirdre, and more lovely than a bursting dawn to them -that are lost in the darkness. Therefore, I award the tithe to myself; -but yet, because I am done with all things, I give it unto you.”</p> -<p>So he flung the bread and the strips of bacon among the beggars, and -they fought with many cries until the last scrap was eaten. But -meanwhile the friars nailed the gleeman to his cross, and set it upright -in the hole, and shovelled the earth in at the foot, and trampled it -level and hard. So then they went away, but the beggars stared on, -sitting round the cross. But when the sun was sinking, they also got up -to go, for the air was getting chilly. And as soon as they had gone a -little way, the wolves, who had been showing themselves on the edge of a -neighbouring coppice, came nearer, and the birds wheeled closer and -closer. “Stay, outcasts, yet a little while,” the crucified one called -in a weak voice to the beggars, “and keep the beasts and the birds from -me.” But the beggars were angry because he had called them outcasts, so -they threw stones and mud at him, and went their way. Then the wolves -gathered at the foot of the cross, and the birds lighted all at once -upon his head and arms and shoulders, and began to peck at him, and the -wolves began to eat his feet. “Outcasts,” he moaned, “have you also -turned against the outcast?”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Drums of Kairwan' id='s5'>THE DRUMS OF KAIRWAN</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'><i>By the Marquess</i> CURZON <span style='font-size:smaller'>OF</span> KEDLESTON</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>Tales of Travel</i>, by The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston. -Copyright, 1923, by George H. Doran Company.</p> -<p>When the appointed hour arrived, I presented myself at the mosque, which -is situated outside the city walls of Kairwan, not far from the -Bab-el-Djuluddin, or Tanners’ Gate. Passing through an open courtyard -into the main building, I was received with a dignified salaam by the -sheik, who forthwith led me to a platform or divan at the upper end of -the central space. This was surmounted by a ribbed and white-washed -dome, and was separated from two side aisles by rows of marble columns -with battered capitals, dating from the Empire of Rome. Between the -arches of the roof small and feeble lamps—mere lighted wicks floating on -dingy oil in cups of coloured glass—ostrich eggs, and gilt balls were -suspended from wooden beams. From the cupola in the centre hung a -dilapidated chandelier in which flickered a few miserable candles. In -one of the side aisles a plastered tomb was visible behind an iron -lattice. The <i>mise en scène</i> was unprepossessing and squalid.</p> -<p>My attention was next turned to the <i>dramatis personae</i>. Upon the floor -in the centre beneath the dome sat the musicians, ten or a dozen in -number, cross-legged, the chief presiding upon a stool at the head of -the circle. I observed no instrument save the <i>darabookah</i>, or earthen -drum, and a number of tambours, the skins of which, stretched tightly -across the frames, gave forth, when struck sharply by the fingers, a -hollow and resonant note. The rest of the orchestra was occupied by the -chorus. So far no actors were visible. The remainder of the floor, both -under the dome and in the aisles, was thickly covered with seated and -motionless figures, presenting in the fitful light a weird and fantastic -picture. In all there must have been over a hundred persons, all males, -in the mosque.</p> -<p>Presently the sheik gave the signal for commencement, and in a moment -burst forth the melancholy chant of the Arab voices and the ceaseless -droning of the drums. The song was not what we should call singing, but -a plaintive and quavering wail, pursued in a certain cadence, now -falling to a moan, now terminating in a shriek, but always pitiful, -piercing and inexpressibly sad. The tambours, which were struck like the -keyboard of a piano, by the outstretched fingers of the hand, and, -occasionally, when a louder note was required, by the thumb, kept up a -monotonous refrain in the background. From time to time, at moments of -greater stress, they were brandished high in the air and beaten with all -the force of fingers and thumb combined. Then the noise was imperious -and deafening.</p> -<p>Among the singers, one grizzled and bearded veteran, with a strident and -nasal intonation, surpassed his fellows. He observed the time with -grotesque reflections of his body; his eyes were fixed and shone with -religious zeal.</p> -<p>The chant proceeded, and the figures of the singers, as they became more -and more excited, rocked to and fro. More people poured in at the -doorway, and the building was now quite full. I began to wonder whether -the musicians were also to be the performers, or when the latter would -make their appearance.</p> -<p>Suddenly a line of four or five Arabs formed itself in front of the -entrance on the far side of the orchestra, and exactly opposite the -bench on which I was sitting. They joined hands, the right of each -clasped in the left of his neighbour, and began a lurching, swaying -motion with their bodies and feet. At first they appeared simply to be -marking time, first with one foot and then with the other; but the -movement was gradually communicated to every member of their bodies; and -from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet they were presently -keeping time with the music in convulsive jerks and leaps and -undulations, the music itself being regulated by the untiring orchestra -of the drums.</p> -<p>This mysterious row of bobbing figures seemed to exercise an -irresistible fascination over the spectators. Every moment one or other -of these left his place to join its ranks. They pushed their way into -the middle, severing the chain for an instant, or joined themselves on -to the ends. The older men appeared to have a right to the centre, the -boys and children—for there were youngsters present not more than seven -or eight years old—were on the wings. Thus the line ever lengthened; -originally it consisted of three or four, presently it was ten or -twelve, anon it was twenty-five or thirty, and before the -self-torturings commenced there were as many as forty human figures -stretching right across the building, and all rocking backwards and -forwards in grim and ungraceful unison, Even the spectators who kept -their places could not resist the contagion; as they sat there they -unconsciously kept time with their heads and shoulders, and one child -swung his little head this way and that with a fury that threatened to -separate it from his body.</p> -<p>Meanwhile, the music had been growing in intensity, the orchestra -sharing the excitement, which they communicated. The drummers beat their -tambours with redoubled force, lifting them high above their heads and -occasionally, at some extreme pitch, tossing them aloft and catching -them again as they fell. Sometimes in the exaltation of frenzy they -started spasmodically to their feet and then sank back into their -original position. But ever and without a pause continued the insistent -accompaniment of the drums.</p> -<p>And now the oscillating line in front of the doorway for the first time -found utterance. As they leaped high on one foot, alternately kicking -out the other, as their heads wagged to and fro and their bodies -quivered with the muscular strain, they cried aloud in praise of Allah. -<i>La ilaha ill Allah!</i> (There is no God but Allah)—this was the untiring -burden of their strain. And then came <i>Ya Allah!</i> (O God), and sometimes -<i>Ya Kahhar!</i> (O avenging God), <i>Ya Hakk!</i> (O just God), while each burst -of clamorous appeal culminated in an awful shout of <i>Ya Hoo!</i> (O Him).</p> -<p>The rapidity and vehemence of their gesticulations was now appalling; -their heads swung backwards and forwards till their foreheads almost -touched their breasts, and their scalps smote against their backs. Sweat -poured from their faces; they panted for breath; and the exclamations -burst from their mouths in a thick and stertorous murmur. Suddenly, and -without warning, the first phase of the <i>zikr</i> ceased, and the actors -stood gasping, shaking, and dripping with perspiration.</p> -<p>After a few seconds’ respite the performance recommenced, and shortly -waxed more furious than ever. The worshippers seemed to be gifted with -an almost superhuman strength and energy. As they flung themselves to -and fro, at one moment their upturned faces gleamed with a sickly polish -under the flickering lamps, at the next their turbaned heads all but -brushed the floor. Their eyes started from the sockets; the muscles on -their necks and the veins on their foreheads stood out like knotted -cords. One old man fell out of the ranks, breathless, spent, and -foaming. His place was taken by another, and the tumultuous orgy went -on.</p> -<p>Presently, as the ecstasy approached its height and the fully initiated -became <i>melboos</i> or possessed, they broke from the stereotyped litany -into domoniacal grinning and ferocious and bestial cries. These writhing -and contorted objects were no longer rational human beings, but savage -animals, caged brutes howling madly in the delirium of hunger or of -pain. They growled like bears, they barked like jackals, they roared -like lions, they laughed like hyænas; and ever and anon from the -seething rank rose a diabolical shriek, like the scream of a dying -horse, or the yell of a tortured fiend. And steadily the while in the -background resounded the implacable reverberation of the drums.</p> -<p>The climax was now reached; the requisite pitch of cataleptic -inebriation had been obtained, and the rites of Aissa were about to -begin. From the crowd at the door a wild figure broke forth, tore off -his upper clothing till he was naked to the waist, and, throwing away -his fez, bared a head close-shaven save for one long and dishevelled -lock that, springing from the scalp, fell over his forehead like some -grisly and funereal plume. A long knife, somewhat resembling a cutlass, -was handed to him by the sheik, who had risen to his feet, and who -directed the phenomena that ensued. Waving it wildly above his head and -protruding the forepart of his figure, the fanatic brought it down blow -after blow against his bared stomach, and drew it savagely to and fro -against the unprotected skin. There showed the marks of a long and livid -weal, but no blood spurted from the gash. In the intervals between the -strokes he ran swiftly from one side to the other of the open space, -taking long stealthy strides like a panther about to spring, and -seemingly so powerless over his own movements that he knocked blindly up -against those who stood in his way, nearly upsetting them with the -violence of the collision.</p> -<p>The prowess or the piety of this ardent devotee proved extraordinarily -contagious. First one and then another of his brethren caught the -afflatus and followed his example. In a few moments every part of the -mosque was the scene of some novel and horrible rite of self-mutilation, -performed by a fresh aspirant to the favour of Allah. Some of these -feats did not rise above the level of the curious but explicable -performances which are sometimes seen upon English stages; <i>e.g.</i>, of -the men who swallow swords, and carry enormous weights suspended from -their jaws; achievements which are in no sense a trick or a deception, -but are to be attributed to abnormal physical powers or structure -developed by long and often perilous practice. In the Aissaiouian -counterpart of these displays there was nothing specially remarkable, -but there were others less commonplace and more difficult of -explanation.</p> -<p>At length, several long iron spits or prongs were produced and -distributed; these formidable implements were about two and a half feet -in length and sharply pointed, and they terminated at the handle in a -circular wooden knob about the size of a large orange. There was great -competition for these instruments of torture, which were used as -follows: Poising one in the air, an Aissioui would suddenly force the -point into the flesh of his own shoulder in front just below the -shoulder blade. Thus transfixed, and holding the weapon aloft, he strode -swiftly up and down. Suddenly, at a signal, he fell on his knees, still -forcing the point into his body, and keeping the wooden head uppermost. -Then there started up another disciple armed with a big wooden mallet, -and he, after a few preliminary taps, rising high on tip-toe with -uplifted weapon would, with an ear-splitting yell, bring it down with -all his force upon the wooden knob, driving the point home through the -shoulder of his comrade. Blow succeeded blow, the victim wincing beneath -the stroke, but uttering no sound, and fixing his eyes with a look of -ineffable delight upon his torturer, till the point was driven right -through the shoulder and projected at the back. Then the patient marched -backwards and forwards with the air and the gait of a conquering hero. -At one moment there were four of these semi-naked maniacs within a yard -of my feet, transfixed and trembling, but beatified and triumphant. Amid -the cries and the swelter, there never ceased for one second the sullen -and menacing vociferation of the drums.</p> -<p>Another man seized an iron skewer, and, placing the point within his -open jaws, forced it steadily through his cheek until it protruded a -couple of inches on the outside. He barked savagely like a dog, and -foamed at the lips.</p> -<p>Others, afflicted with exquisite spasms of hunger, knelt down before the -chief, whimpering like children for food, and turning upon him imploring -glances from their glazed and bloodshot eyes. His control over his -following was supreme. Some he gratified, others he forbade. At a touch -from him, they were silent and relaxed into quiescence. One maddened -wretch who, fancying himself some wild beast, plunged to and fro, -roaring horribly, and biting and tearing with his teeth at whomever he -met, was advancing, as I thought, with somewhat truculent intent in my -direction, when he was arrested by his superior and sent back, cringing -and cowed.</p> -<p>For those whose ravenous appetites he was content to humour the most -singular repast was prepared. A plate was brought in, covered with huge -jagged pieces of broken glass, as thick as a shattered soda-water -bottle. With greedy chuckles and gurglings of delight, one of the hungry -ones dashed at it, crammed a handful into his mouth, and crunched it up -as though it were some exquisite dainty, a fellow-disciple calmly -stroking the exterior of his throat, with intent, I suppose, to -lubricate the descent of the unwonted morsels. A little child held up a -snake or a sand-worm by the tail, placing the head between his teeth, -and gulped it gleefully down. Several acolytes came in, carrying a big -stem of the prickly pear, or <i>fico d’India</i>, whose leaves are as thick -as a one-inch plank, and are armed with huge projecting thorns. This was -ambrosia to the starving saints. They rushed at it with passionate -emulation, tearing at the solid slabs with their teeth, and gnawing and -munching the coarse fibers, regardless of the thorns which pierced their -tongues and cheeks as they swallowed them down.</p> -<p>The most singular feature of all, and the one that almost defies belief, -though it is none the less true, was this—that in no case did one drop -of blood emerge from scar, or gash, or wound. This fact I observed most -carefully, the <i>mokaddem</i> standing at my side, and each patient in turn -coming to him when his self-imposed torture had been accomplished, and -the cataleptic frenzy had spent its force. It was the chief who -cunningly withdrew the blade from cheek or shoulder or body, rubbing -over the spot what appeared to me to be the saliva of his own mouth; -then he whispered an absolution in the ear of the disciple, and kissed -him on the forehead, whereupon the patient, but a moment before writhing -in maniacal transports, retired tranquilly and took his seat upon the -floor. He seemed none the worse for his recent paroxysm, and the wound -was marked only by a livid blotch or a hectic flush.</p> -<p>This was the scene that for more than an hour went on without pause or -intermission before my eyes. The building might have been tenanted by -the Harpies or Laestrygones of Homer, or by some inhuman monsters of -legendary myth. Amid the dust and sweat and insufferable heat the naked -bodies of the actors shone with a ghastly pallor and exhaled a sickening -smell. The atmosphere reeked with heavy and intoxicating fumes. Above -the despairing chant of the singers rang the frenzied yells of the -possessed, the shrieks of the hammerer, and the inarticulate cries, the -snarling and growling, the bellowing and miauling of the self-imagined -beasts. And ever behind and through all re-echoed the perpetual and -pitiless imprecation of the drums.</p> -<p>As I witnessed the disgusting spectacle and listened to the pandemonium -of sounds, my head swam, my eyes became dim, my senses reeled, and I -believed that in a few moments I must have fainted, had not one of my -friends touched me on the shoulder, and, whispering that the <i>mokaddem</i> -was desirous that I should leave, escorted me hurriedly to the door. As -I walked back to my quarters, and long after through the still night, -the beat of the tambours continued, and I heard the distant hum of -voices, broken at intervals by an isolated and piercing cry. Perhaps yet -further and more revolting orgies were celebrated after I had left. I -had not seen, as other travellers have done, the chewing and swallowing -of red-hot cinders,<span style='vertical-align:super; font-size:0.7em'><a id='fn1' href='#fnt1'>1</a></span> or the harmless handling and walking upon live -coals. I had been spared that which others have described as the climax -of the gluttonous debauch, <i>viz.</i>, the introduction of a live sheep, -which then and there is savagely torn to pieces and devoured raw by -these unnatural banqueters. But I had seen enough, and as I sank to -sleep my agitated fancy pursued a thousand avenues of thought, -confounding in one grim medley all the carnivorous horrors of fact and -fable and fiction. Loud above the din and discord the tale of the false -prophets of Carmel, awakened by the train of association, rang in my -ears, till I seemed to hear intoned with remorseless repetition the -words: “They cried aloud and cut themselves after their manner with -knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them”; and in the -ever-receding distance of dreamland, faint and yet fainter, there -throbbed the inexorable and unfaltering delirium of the drums.</p> -<hr class='fnm' /> -<table summary="Footnote" id='fnt1' class='fn'><tr><td class='fnn'><a -href='#fn1'>1</a></td><td style='font-size:0.8em;'> For an account of -this exploit, <i>vide</i> Lane’s <i>Modern Egyptians</i>, cap. xxv.; and compare -the description of Richardson, the famous fire-eater, in Evelyn’s -<i>Memoirs</i> for October 8, 1672. -</td></tr></table> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='A Life—A Bowl of Rice' id='s6'>A LIFE—A BOWL OF RICE</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By L. DE BRA</p> -<p>Bow Sam stood in the doorway by his sugar-cane stand and watched with -narrowed eyes an old man who shuffled uncertainly down the alley towards -him.</p> -<p>“<i>Hoo la ma!</i>” cried Bow Sam, in surprised Cantonese as the old man drew -near. “Hello, there! I scarcely knew you, venerable Fa’ng!”</p> -<p>Fa’ng, the hatchetman, straightened his bent shoulders and looked up. -There was a gleam in his deep bronze eyes that was hardly in keeping -with his withered frame.</p> -<p>“<i>Hoo la ma</i>, Bow Sam,” he said, his voice strangely deep and vibrant.</p> -<p>“You have grown very thin,” remarked Bow Sam with friendly interest.</p> -<p>“<i>Hi low</i>; that is true. But why carry around flesh that is not food?”</p> -<p>The sugar-cane vendor eyed the other shrewdly. What was the gossip he -had heard concerning Fa’ng, the famous old hatchetman? Was it not that -the old man was always hungry? Yes, that was it! Fa’ng, whose long knife -and swift arm had been the most feared thing in all Chinatown, was -starving—too proud to beg, too honest to steal.</p> -<p>“You have eaten well, venerable Fa’ng?” The inquiry was in a casual -tone, respectful.</p> -<p>“<i>Aih</i>, I have eaten well,” replied the old hatchetman, averting his -face.</p> -<p>“How unfortunate for me! I have not yet eaten my rice; for when one must -dine alone, one goes slowly to table. Is it not written that a bowl of -rice shared is doubly enjoyed? Would you not at least have a cup of tea -while I eat my mean fare?”</p> -<p>“I shall be honoured to sip tea with you, estimable Bow Sam,” replied -the hatchetman with poorly disguised eagerness.</p> -<p>“Then condescend to enter my poor house! Ah, one does not often have the -pleasure of your company in these days!”</p> -<p>Bow Sam preceded his guest to the wretched hovel that was the sugar-cane -vendor’s only home. There he quickly removed all trace of the bowl of -rice he had eaten but a moment before.</p> -<p>“Will you take this poor stool, venerable Fa’ng?” said Bow, setting out -the only stool he possessed, and placing it so that the hatchetman’s -back would be to the stove.</p> -<p>Wearily, Fa’ng sat down. Bow put out two small cups, each worn and badly -chipped, and filled them with hot tea. Then, while the hatchetman sipped -his tea, Bow uncovered the rice kettle. There was but one bowl of rice -left. Bow Sam had intended to keep it for his evening meal; for until he -sold some sugar-cane, he had no way of obtaining more food.</p> -<p>Behind Fa’ng’s back, Bow took two rice bowls and set them on the stove. -One bowl he heaped full for the hatchetman. In the other he put an -upturned tea bowl and sprinkled over it his last few grains of rice.</p> -<p>“Let us give thanks to the gods of the kitchen that we have food and -teeth and appetite,” chuckled Bow Sam, seating himself on a sugar-cane -box opposite Fa’ng.</p> -<p>“Well spoken,” returned the old hatchetman, quickly filling his mouth -with the nourishing rice. “<i>Aih</i>, there is much in life to make one -content.”</p> -<p>With his chop-sticks Bow Sam deftly took up a few grains of rice, taking -care lest he uncover the upturned tea bowl. He was deeply grateful that -he had a few teeth left, that he quite often had enough rice, and -sometimes had meat as often as once a month; but to hear the proud old -hatchetman express such sentiments on an empty stomach filled him with -admiration.</p> -<p>“What a virtue to be content with one’s lot!” he exclaimed, refilling -the hatchetman’s tea bowl. “Yet the younger generation are always -fretting because they think they have not enough; while, as anyone -knows, they have much more than we who first came to this land of the -white foreign devil.”</p> -<p>“They are young,” spoke Fa’ng, nodding his head slowly. “For us the days -have fled, the years have not tarried. And we have learned that if one -has but a bowl of rice for food and a bent arm for pillow, one can be -content.”</p> -<p>“<i>Haie!</i> How can you speak so softly of the younger generation when it -is they who have robbed you of your livelihood? I know the gossip. You, -the most famous killer in Chinatown, find yourself cast out like a -worn-out broom by these young upstarts who have no respect for their -elders. Is it not true?”</p> -<p>With his left hand the old hatchetman made an eloquent gesture, -peculiarly Chinese, much as one quickly throws open a fan.</p> -<p>“Of what value are words, my friend? They cannot change that which is -changeless. A word cannot temper the wind, nor a phrase procure food for -a hungry stomach.”</p> -<p>“Nevertheless, I do not like such things,” persisted Sam. “I love the -old ways. You were an honourable and fearless killer. When you were -hired to slay one’s enemy you went boldly to your victim and told him -your business. Then, swiftly, even before the doomed one could open his -lips, you struck—cleaned your blade and walked your way.</p> -<p>“The modern killers!” Bow Sam spewed the words out as one does sour -rice. “They are too cowardly to use the knife. They hide on roofs, fire -on their victims, then throw away their guns and flee like thieves. -<i>Aih</i>, what have we come to in these days!</p> -<p>“It was but yesterday after mid-day rice that I had speech with Gar -Ling, a gunman of the Sin Wah tong. He stopped to buy sugar-cane, and I -told him that had I the money I would hire him. There is one of the -younger generation, the pock-marked son of Quong, the dealer in jade, -who has greatly wronged me and my honourable family name, and my -distinguished ancestors. As you very well know, one cannot soil one’s -own hands with the blood of vengeance. Moreover, I have no weapon, not -even a dull cleaver. Neither can I afford to hire a fighting man.</p> -<p>“I was telling all this to Gar Ling,” went on Bow, straining the last -drop of tea into Fa’ng’s bowl, “and he told me he would settle my -quarrel, but it would cost one thousand dollars. When I told him I had -not even a thousand copper <i>cash</i>, he became angry and abusive. As he -walked his way, quickly, like a foreign devil, he spat in my direction -and called me an unspeakable name.”</p> -<p>“<i>Ts, ts!</i> You should have wrung his neck. Repeat to me his unspeakable -words.”</p> -<p>“He said,” cried Bow Sam, his face twisted in fury, “that I am the son -of a turtle!”</p> -<p>“<i>Aih-yah!</i> How insulting! As anyone knows, in all our language there is -no epithet more vile!”</p> -<p>“That is true. But what is even worse, I did not remember until after he -had gone that he had not paid me for the piece of sugar-cane. Such is -the way of the younger generation; and we, who have been long in the -land, can do nothing.”</p> -<p>“Yet it is by such things that one learns the lesson of enduring -tranquillity,” remarked Fa’ng, smacking his lips and moving back from -the table.</p> -<p>For about the time, then, that it takes one to make nine bows before the -household gods, neither man made speech. Then Fa’ng arose.</p> -<p>“An excellent bowl of rice, my good friend.”</p> -<p>“<i>Aih</i>, it shames me to have to give you such mean fare.”</p> -<p>“And the tea was most fragrant.”</p> -<p>“<i>Ts</i>, it was only the cheapest Black Dragon.”</p> -<p>The two old men went to the door.</p> -<p>“<i>Ho hang la</i>,” said the hatchetman.</p> -<p>“<i>Ho hang la</i>,” echoed the sugar-cane vendor. “I hope you have a safe -walk.”</p> -<p>Fa’ng, the hatchetman, made his way down the alley to the rear entrance -of a pawnshop. There he spoke a few words with the proprietor.</p> -<p>“I know you are honest, old man,” said the pawnbroker. “But instead of -bringing it back, I hope, for your own sake, you will be able to pay -what you owe me.”</p> -<p>Then from a safe he took a knife with long, slender blade and a handle -of ebony in which had been carved an unbelievable number of notches. -Fa’ng took the knife, handling it as one does an object of precious -memories, concealed it beneath his tattered blouse, and went his way.</p> -<p>Near the entrance of a gambling house in Canton Alley the old hatchetman -met the pock-marked son of Quong, the dealer in jade.</p> -<p>“For the wrong you have done Bow Sam, his family name, and his -distinguished ancestors,” said Fa’ng quietly; and before the other could -open his lips the long blade was through his heart.</p> -<p>In front of a cigar store in Shanghai Place, Fa’ng found Gar Ling, the -gunman. “I have business of moment with you, Gar Ling,” said the -hatchetman. “Come.”</p> -<p>Gar Ling hesitated. He stood in great fear of the old killer, yet he -dared not show that fear before his young friends. So with his left hand -he gave a peculiar signal. A boy standing near with a basket of <i>lichee</i> -nuts on his arm turned quickly and followed the two men down the alley. -Drawing near his employer, the boy held up the basket as though -soliciting the gunman to buy. Gar’s hand darted swiftly into the basket, -beneath the lichee nuts, and came out with a heavy automatic pistol -which he quickly concealed beneath his blouse.</p> -<p>The old hatchetman knew all the tricks of the young gunman, but he -pretended he had not seen. As they turned a dark corner, he paused.</p> -<p>“For the insulting words you spoke to Bow Sam,” he said calmly, and the -long blade glided between the gunman’s ribs.</p> -<p>As Fa’ng drew the steel away, Gar Ling staggered, fired once, then -collapsed.</p> -<p>Bow Sam stood in the doorway by his sugar-cane stand and watched with -narrowed eyes an old man who shuffled uncertainly down the alley toward -him.</p> -<p>“<i>Hoo la ma!</i>” he cried, as the old man drew near. “I did not expect to -see you again so soon.”</p> -<p>The old hatchetman did not raise his head nor reply. Staggering, he -crossed the threshold and fell on his face on the littered floor.</p> -<p>With a throaty cry Bow Sam slammed the door shut. He bent over Fa’ng.</p> -<p>“This knife,” said the hatchetman; “take it—to Wong the pawnbroker. Tell -him—all. Worth—more—than I owe.”</p> -<p>“But what’s——”</p> -<p>“For the wrong that the pock-marked one did you, for the insult Gar Ling -spoke to you, I slew them,” said Fa’ng, with sudden strength. “My debt -is paid. <i>Tsau kom lok.</i>”</p> -<p>“<i>Haie!</i> You did that! Why did you do that? I could never pay you! And -look! <i>Aih-yah</i>, oh, how piteous! You are dying!”</p> -<p>With awkward fingers, the vendor of sugar-cane tried to staunch the flow -of blood where Gar Ling’s bullet had struck with deadly effect.</p> -<p>“Pay me?” breathed Fa’ng the hatchetman. “Did you—not—feed me? Can -one—put a value—on food—when the stomach—is empty? <i>Aih</i>, what—matters -it? A life,”—his eyelids fluttered and closed—“a life—a bowl of -rice....”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Hodge' id='s7'>HODGE</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By ELINOR MORDAUNT</p> -<p>People are accustomed to think of Somerset as a country of deep, bosky -bays, sunny coves, woods, moorlands, but Hemerton was in itself -sufficient to blur this bland illusion. It lay a mile and a half back -from the sea, counting it all full tide; at low tide the sly, smooth -waters, unbroken by a single rock, slipped away for another mile or more -across a dreary ooze of black mud.</p> -<p>The village lay pasted flat upon the marsh, with no trees worthy of the -name in sight: a few twisted black-thorn bushes, a few split willows, -one wreck of a giant blighted ash in the Rectory gardens, and that was -all.</p> -<p>For months on end the place swam in vapours. There were wonderful -effects of sunrise and sunset, veils of crimson and gold, of every shade -of blue and purple. At times the grey sea-lavender was like silver, the -wet, black mud gleaming like dark opals; while at high summer there was -purple willow-strife spilled thick along the ditches, giving the strange -place a transitory air of warm-blooded life; but for the most part it -was all as aloof and detached as a sleep-walker.</p> -<p>The birds fitted the place as a verger fits his quiet and dusky church: -herons and waders of all kinds; wild-crying curlew; and here and there a -hawk, hanging motionless high overhead.</p> -<p>There were scarcely fifty houses in Hemerton, and these were all alike, -flat and brown and grey; where there had been plaster it was flaked and -ashen. The very church stooped, as though shamed to a sort of -poor-relation pose by the immense indifference of the mist-veiled -sky—the drooping lids on a scornful face—for even at midday, in -mid-summer, the heavens were never quite clear, quite blue, but still -veiled and apart.</p> -<p>The Rectory was a two-storied building, low at that, and patched with -damp: small, with a narrow-chested air, tiny windows, a thin, grudging -doorway, blistered paint, which gave it a leprous air; and just that one -tree, with its pale, curled leaves in summer, its jangling keys in -winter.</p> -<p>It was amazing to find that any creature so warmly vital as the Rector’s -daughter, Rhoda Fane, had been begotten, born, reared in such a place; -spent her entire life there, apart from two years of school at Clifton, -and six months in Brussels, cut short by her mother’s death.</p> -<p>She was like a beech wood in September: ruddy, crisp, fragrant. Her -hair, dark-brown, with copper lights, was so springing with life that it -seemed more inclined to grow up than hang down; her face was almost -round, her wide, brown eyes frank and eager. She was as good as any man -with her leaping-pole: broad-shouldered, deep-breasted, with a soft, -deep contralto voice.</p> -<p>Her only brother, Hector, was four years younger than herself. Funds had -run low, drained away by their mother’s illness, before it was time for -him to go to school; he was too delicate for the second-best, roughing -it among lads of a lower class, and so he was kept at home, taught by -his father: a thin trickle of distilled classics and wavering -mathematics; a good deal of history, no geography.</p> -<p>He, in startling contrast to his sister, was a true child of the -marshes: thin light hair, vellum-white, peaked face, pale grey eyes -beneath an overhanging brow, large, transparent ears: narrow-chested, -long-armed, stooping, so that he seemed almost a hunchback.</p> -<p>In all ways he was the shadow of Rhoda, followed her everywhere; and as -there is no shadow without the sun, so it seemed that he could scarcely -have existed apart from her. Small as he already was, he almost puled -himself out of life while she was away at school; and after a bare week -from home she would get back to find him with the best part of his -substance peeled from him, white as a willow-wand.</p> -<p>Different as these two were, they were passionately attached to each -other. The Rector was a kind father when he drew himself out of the -morass of melancholy and disillusion into which he had fallen since his -wife died, wilting away with damp and discontent, and sheer loathing of -the soil in which it had been his misfortune to plant her. But still, at -the best, he was a parent, and so apart, while there were no neighbours, -no playfellows.</p> -<p>Once or twice Rhoda’s school-friends came to stay at the Rectory, and -for the first day or so it seemed delightful to talk of dress, of a -gayer world, possible lovers. But after a very little while they began -to pall on her: they understood nothing of what was her one absorbing -interest—the natural life of the place in which she lived: were -discontented, disdainful of the marshland, hated the mud, feared the -fogs, shivered in the damp.</p> -<p>Anyhow, the brother and sister were sufficient to each other, for they -shared a never-failing, or even diminishing, interest—and what more can -any two people wish for?—a passionate absorption in, a minute knowledge -of, the wild life of the marshland; its legends and folklore; its habits -and calls; the mating seasons and manners of the birds; the place and -habit of every wild flower; the way of the wind with the sky, and all -its portents; the changing seasons, seemingly so uneven from year to -year, and yet working out so much the same in the end.</p> -<p>They could not have said how they first came to hear of the Forest: they -had always talked of it. To Hector, at least, it was so vivid that he -seemed to have actually struggled through its immense depths, swung in -its hanging creepers, smelt its sickly-sweet orchids, breathed its hot, -damp air—so far real to both alike that they would find themselves -saying, “Do you remember?” in speaking of paths that they had never -traversed.</p> -<p>Provisionally they had fixed their Forest at the Miocene Period. Or, -rather, this is what it came to: the boy ceasing to protest against the -winged monsters, the rhinoceros, the long-jawed mastodon which -fascinated the girl’s imagination; though there was one impassioned -scene when he flamed out over his clear remembrance of a sabre-toothed -tiger, putting all those others—stupid, hulking brutes!—out of court by -many thousands of years.</p> -<p>“They couldn’t have been there, couldn’t—not with us and with ‘It’—I saw -it, I tell you—I tell you I saw it!” His pale face flamed, his eyes were -as bright as steel. “The mastodon! That’s nothing—nothing! But the -sabre-toothed tiger—I tell you I saw it. What are you grinning at -now?—in our Forest—ours, mind you!—I saw it!”</p> -<p>“Oh, indeed, indeed!” Suddenly, because the day was so hot, because they -were bored, because she was unwittingly impressed, as always, by her -brother’s heat of conviction, Rhoda’s serene temper was gone. “And did -you see yourself? and what were you doing there, may I ask—you! Silly -infant, don’t you know that there weren’t any men then? Phew! Everyone -knows that—everyone. You and your old tiger!”</p> -<p>There was mockery in her laugh as she took him by the lapels of his -coat; shook him.</p> -<p>Then, next moment when he turned aside, sullen and pale, his brows in a -pent-house above his eyes, she was filled with contrition. The rotten, -thundery day had set her all on edge; it was a shame to tease him like -this; and, after all, how often had she herself remembered back? Though -there was a difference, and she knew it, a sense of fantasy, pretending; -while Hector was as jealous of every detail of their Forest as a -long-banished exile over every cherished memory of his own land.</p> -<p>Though, of course, there were no men contemporary with that wretched -tiger: he knew that; he must know.</p> -<p>Lolling under their one tree, in the steamy, early afternoon, she coaxed -him back to the subject, and was beaten upon it, as the half-hearted -always are.</p> -<p>He was so amazingly clear about the whole thing.... Why, it might have -happened yesterday!</p> -<p>He had been up in the trees, slinking along—not the hunting man, but the -hunted—watchful, furtive; a picker-up of what other beasts had slain and -taken their fill of: more watchful than usual because he had already -come across a carcass left by the long-toothed terror, all the blood -sucked out of it. Swinging from bough to bough by his hands—which, even -when he stood upright, as upright as possible, dangled far below his -knees—he had actually seen it; seen its gleaming tusks, its shining -eyes; seen it, and fled, wild with terror.</p> -<p>Was it likely that he could ever forget it? “It and its beastly teeth!” -he added; then fell silent, brooding; while even Rhoda was awed to -silence.</p> -<p>It was that very evening that they found their Forest, or, rather, a -part of it. They had gone over to the shore meaning to bathe, but for -once their memories were at fault; and they found that the tide was out, -a mere rim of molten lead on the far edge of the horizon.</p> -<p>They were both tired, but they could not rest. They cut inland for a -bit, then out again; crossing the mudflats until the mud oozed above -their boots and drove them back again.</p> -<p>They must have wandered about a long time, for the light—although it did -not actually go—became illusive; the air freshened with that salty scent -which tells of a flowing tide.</p> -<p>Hector insisted that they ought to wait until it was full in, and have -their bath by moonlight; but, as Rhoda pointed out, that would mean no -supper, dawdling about for hours. After some time they compromised: they -would go out and meet the tide; see what it was like.</p> -<p>Almost at the water’s edge they found It—their Forest.</p> -<p>There it was, buried like a fly in amber: twisted trunks and boughs, -matted creepers, all ash-grey and black.</p> -<p>How far it stretched up and down the shore they could not have said, the -time was too short, the sea too near for any exploration; but not far, -they thought, or they must have discovered it before. “Nothing more than -a fold out of the world, squeezed up to the surface”; that was what they -agreed upon.</p> -<p>They divided and ran in opposite directions—“Just to try and find out,” -as Rhoda said. But after a few yards, a couple of dozen, maybe, they -called back to each other that they had lost it.</p> -<p>The darkness gathering, the water almost to their feet; they were -bitterly disappointed, but anyhow there was to-morrow, many -“to-morrows.”</p> -<p>All that evening they talked of nothing else. “It’s been there for -thousands and tens of thousands of years! It will be there to-morrow,” -they said.</p> -<p>It was towards two o’clock in the morning that Hector, restless with -excitement and fear, padded into his sister’s room; found her -sleeping—stupidly sleeping—with the moonlight full upon her, and shook -her awake; unreasonably angry, as wakeful people always are with the -sleepers.</p> -<p>“Suppose we never find it again! Oh, Rhoda, suppose we never find it -again!”</p> -<p>“Find what?”</p> -<p>“The Forest, you idiot!—our Forest.”</p> -<p>“Hector, don’t be silly. Go back to bed; you’ll get cold. Of course -we’ll find it.”</p> -<p>“Why of course? I’ve been thinking and thinking and thinking. There -wasn’t a tree or bush or landmark of any sort: we had pottered about all -over the shop: supposing we’ve lost it for ever? Oh, supposing, Rhoda, -Rhoda! What sillies we were! Why didn’t we stay there, camp opposite it -until the tide went out? I feel it in my bones—we’ll never find it -again—never—never—never! There might have been skulls, all sorts of -things—long teeth—tigers’ teeth! And now we’ve lost it. It’s no good -talking—we’ve lost it; I know we’ve lost it—after all these years! After -thousands and thousands and thousands of years of remembering!”</p> -<p>The boy’s forehead was glistening with sweat; the tears were running -down his face, white as bone in the moonlight. Rhoda drew him into her -bed, comforted him as best she could, very sleepy, and unperturbed—for, -of course, they would find it. How could they help finding it? And after -a while he fell asleep, still moaning and crying, searching for a lost -path through his dreams.</p> -<p>He was right in his foreboding. They did not find it. Perhaps the tide -had been out further than usual: they had walked further than they -thought; they had dreamt the whole thing; the light had deceived -them—impossible to say.</p> -<p>At first, in the broad light of day, even Hector was incredulous of -their misfortune. Then, as the completeness of their loss grew upon -them, they became desperate—possessed by that terrible restlessness of -the searcher after lost things. Day after day they would come back from -the sea worn out, utterly hopeless; declaring that here was the end of -the whole thing; sick at the very thought of the secret mud, the long -black shore.</p> -<p>They gave it up. They would never go near “the rotten thing” again.</p> -<p>Then, a few hours later, the thought of the freshly-receding tide began -to work like madness in their veins, and they would be out and away.</p> -<p>It was easier for Rhoda; for she was of those who “sleep o’ nights”; -easier until she found that her brother slipped off on moonlight nights -while she slumbered: coming back at all hours, haggard and worn to -fainting-point.</p> -<p>He stooped more than ever: his brow was more overhung, furrowed with -horizontal lines. Sometimes, furious with herself for her sleepiness, -Rhoda would awake, jump out of bed and run to the window in the fresh -dawn, to see the boy dragging himself home, old as the ages, his hands -hanging loose to his knees.</p> -<p>At last the breaking-point came. He was very ill: after a long -convalescence, money was collected from numerous relations, family -treasures were sold, and he was sent away to school.</p> -<p>He came back for his holidays a changed creature, talking of footer, -then of cricket; of boys and masters; of school—school—school—nothing -but school; blunt and practical.</p> -<p>But all this was at the front of him, deliberately displayed in the -shop-windows.</p> -<p>At the back of him, buried out of sight, there was still the visionary -rememberer. Rhoda, who loved him, realised this.</p> -<p>At first she did not dare to speak of the Forest. Then, trying to get at -something of the old Hector, she pressed the point; pressed it and -pressed it. It was she now who kept on with that eternal, “Don’t you -remember?”</p> -<p>The worst of the whole thing was that he did not even pretend to forget. -He did worse—he laughed. And in her own pain she now realised how often -and how deeply she must have hurt him.</p> -<p>“Oh, that rot! What silly idiots we were! Such rot!”</p> -<p>And yet, at the back of him, at the back of his too-direct gaze, his -laughter, there was <i>something</i>. Oh, yes, there was something. She was -certain of that.</p> -<p>Deep, deep, hidden away at the back of him, at the back of that most -imperturbable of all reserves, a boy’s reserve, he remembered, felt as -he had always felt. He shut her out of it, that was all: her—Rhoda.</p> -<p>At the end of a year they ceased to talk of the Forest; all those -far-back things dropped away from their intercourse. To outward seeming -their love for the countryside, their strange, unyouthful interest in -geology, the age-buried world, seemed a thing of the past.</p> -<p>Hector had a bicycle now: he was often away for hours at a time. He -never even spoke of where he had been, what he had been doing. It was -always: “Nowhere in particular; nothing in particular.”</p> -<p>Then, two years later, upon just such a breathless mid-summer day, he -burst in upon his sister, his face crimson with excitement.</p> -<p>“I’ve found it! I never gave up—never for a moment! I pretended—I -thought you thought it rot—were drawing me on—but it’s there. We were -right. It’s there—there! Quick! quick! Now the tide’s just almost full -out.... Oh, by Jingo! to think I’ve found it! Rhoda, hurry up—quick!” He -was dancing with impatience.</p> -<p>“I can ride the bike—you on the step,” breathed Rhoda, and snatched up a -hat.</p> -<p>They flew. The village shot past them: the flat country swirled like a -top. At last they came to a place where there was a tiny rag of torn -handkerchief tied to a stick stuck upright in the ground. Here they left -the road, laid the bicycle in a dry ditch, and cut away across the -marsh; guided by more signals—scraps of cambric, then paper; towards the -end, one every ten yards or less, until Rhoda wondered how in the world -had the boy curbed himself to such care!</p> -<p>Then—there it was.</p> -<p>They stepped it: just on fifty yards long, indefinitely wide, running -out into little bays, here and there tailing off so that it was -impossible to discover any definite edge, sinking away out of sight like -a dream.</p> -<p>The sun was blazing hot and the top of the mud dry. In places they went -down upon their hands and knees, peering; but really one saw most -standing a little way off, with one’s head bent, eyeing it sideways.</p> -<p>It was in this way that Rhoda found It—Him!</p> -<p>“Look—look! Oh, I say—there’s something.... A thing—an animal! -No—no—a—a——”</p> -<p>“Sabre-toothed tiger!” The boy’s wild shriek of triumph showed how he -had hugged that old conjecture.</p> -<p>He came running, but until he got his head at exactly the same slant as -hers he could see nothing, and was furiously petulant.</p> -<p>“Idiot! Silly fool!—nothing but a bough. You——” A lucky angle, and, “Oh, -I say, by Jove! I’ve got it now! A man—a man!”</p> -<p>“A monkey—a great ape; there were no men, then, with ‘It.’” There, it -seemed, she conceded him his tiger. “A little nearer—now again, there!”</p> -<p>They crept towards it. It was clear enough at a little distance; but -nearer, what with the blazing sun and the queer incandescent lights on -the mud, they found difficulty in exactly placing it. At last they had -it, found themselves immediately over it; were able, kneeling side by -side, to gaze down at the strange, age-old figure, lying huddled -together, face forward.</p> -<p>It was not more than a couple of feet down; the semitransparent mud must -have been silting over it for years and years: silted away again through -centuries. And all for them—just for them. What a thought!</p> -<p>Hector raced off for his bicycle, and so on to the nearest cottage to -borrow a spade.</p> -<p>The mental picture of the “man” and the sabre-toothed tiger met and -clashed in his brain. If he was so certain of the man he must concede -the tiger, given in to Rhoda and her later period. Unless—unless.... -Suddenly he clapped his hands to his ears as though someone were -shouting: his eyes closed, shutting out sight and sound. There <i>was</i> a -tiger, he remembered—of course he remembered! And if he were there, -others were there also—not one tiger, not one man, but tigers and men; -both, both!</p> -<p>By the time he got back to where he had left his sister, the water was -above her knees, the tide racing inwards.</p> -<p>They were not going to be done this time, however.</p> -<p>It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and their father was away from -home. Rhoda went back and ordered the household with as much sobriety as -possible; collected a supply of food and a couple of blankets—they had -camped out before and there was nothing so very amazing in their -behaviour—then returned to the shore, the shrine.</p> -<p>Hector was sitting at the edge of the water, staring fixedly, white as a -sheet.</p> -<p>Rhoda collected driftwood and built a fire; almost fed him, for he took -nothing but what was put into his hand.</p> -<p>“It will still be there, even if we go to sleep,” she said; then, -“Anyhow, we’ll watch turn and turn about.”</p> -<p>But it was all of no use. The boy might lie down in his turn, but he -still faced the sea with steady, staring eyes.</p> -<p>Soon after three he woke his sister, shaking her in a frenzy of -impatience. Oh, these sleepers!</p> -<p>“Sleeping! Sleeping! You great stupid, you! I never! I.... Just look at -the tide—only look!”</p> -<p>The tide was pretty far out, the whole world a mist of pinkish-grey. -Step by step they followed the retreating lap of water.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>By six o’clock they had the heavy body out, and were dragging it across -the rapidly-drying mud.</p> -<p>It was not as big as Hector: five-foot-one at the most, but almost -incredibly heavy, with immense rounded shoulders.</p> -<p>By the time they reached the true shore they were done, and flung -themselves down, panting, exhausted. But they could not rest. A few -minutes more and they were up again, turning the creature over, rubbing -the mud away from the hairy body with bunches of grass; parting the -long, matted locks which hung over its lowering face, with the overhung -brow, flat nose, almost non-existent chin. The eyes were shut, but oddly -unsunken: it smelt of marsh slime, of decayed vegetation, but nothing -more.</p> -<p>Hector poked forward a finger to see if he could push up one eyelid, and -drew back sharply.</p> -<p>“Why—hang it all—the thing’s warm!”</p> -<p>“No wonder, with this sun. I’m dripping from head to foot. Hector, we -must go home. Matty will tell; there’ll be the eyes of a row.”</p> -<p>For all her insistence it was another hour before Rhoda could get her -brother away. Again and again he met the returning tide with her hat, -bringing it back full of water; washing their find from head to foot, -combing its matted hair with a clipped fragment of driftwood. But at -last they dragged it to a dry dyke, covered it with dry yellow grass, -and were off, Rhoda on the step this time, Hector draped limply over the -handle of the bicycle.</p> -<p>He slept like a dead thing for the best part of that day. But soon after -three they were away again: no use for Rhoda to raise objections; the -unrest of an intense excitement was in her bones as in his, and he knew -it.</p> -<p>It had been a cloudless day, the veil of mist fainter than usual, the -sky bluer.</p> -<p>As they left the bicycle and cut across the rough foreshore the sun beat -down upon them with an almost unbearable fierceness. There was a shimmer -like a mirage across the marshes: the sea was the colour of burnt steel.</p> -<p>They dog-trotted half the way, arguing as they ran; Hector, still fixed, -pivoting upon his sabre-toothed tiger, and yet insistent that <i>this</i> was -a man—a real man—contemporary with it: the first absolute proof of human -existence anterior to the First Glacial age.</p> -<p>“An ape—a sort of ape—nearish to a man, but—well, look at his hair.” -She’d give him his tiger, but not his man.</p> -<p>“By Gad, you’d grow hair, running wild as he did—a man——”</p> -<p>“Hector, what rot! Why, anyone—anyone could see—” She thought of her -father, the smooth curate, the rubicund farmers.... A man!</p> -<p>“Well, stick to it—stick to it! But I bet you anything—anything....”</p> -<p>Hector’s words were jerked out of him as he padded on:</p> -<p>“We’ll get hundreds and hundreds of pounds for him! Travel—see the -world—go to Java, where that other chap—what’s his name—was found. Why, -he’s older than the Heidelberg Johnny—a thousand thousand times -great-grandfather to that Pitcairn thing—older—older—oh, older than -any!”</p> -<p>Panting, stumbling, half-blind with exhaustion, the boy was still a good -six yards in front of his sister as he reached the dry dyke where they -had left their treasure.</p> -<p>Rhoda saw him stand for a moment, staring, then spin round as though he -had been shot, throwing up his arms with a hoarse scream.</p> -<p>By the time she had her own arms about him, he could only point, -trembling from head to foot.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>There was nothing there! Torn grass where they had pulled it to rub down -their find; the very shape of the body distinct upon the sandy, -sparsely-covered soil; the stick with the pennant of blue ribbon which -Rhoda had taken from her hat to mark the spot.... Nothing more, nothing -whatever.</p> -<p>Up and down the girl ran, circling like a plover, her head bent. It must -be somewhere, it must—it must!</p> -<p>She glanced at her brother, who stood as though turned to stone: this -was the sort of thing which sent people mad, killed them—to be so -frightfully disappointed, and yet to stand still, to say nothing.</p> -<p>She caught at his arm and faced him, the tears streaming down her -cheeks.</p> -<p>“Oh, my dear, my dear—” she began, then broke off, staring beyond him.</p> -<p>“Why ... why—Hector—I say—” Her voice broke to a whisper: she had a -feeling as though she must be taking part in some mad dream. Quite -inconsequently the thought of Balaam came to her. How did Balaam feel -when the ass spoke to him? As she did—with eye more amazed than any ears -could ever be.</p> -<p>“Hector—look.... It—It....”</p> -<p>As her brother still stood speechless, with bent head and ashen face, -she dropped to silence: too terrified of It, of her plainly deluded -self, of everything on earth, to say more....</p> -<p>One simply could not trust one’s own eyes; that’s what it came to.</p> -<p>Her legs were trembling; she could feel her knees touching each other, -cold and clammy.</p> -<p>It would have been impossible to say a word, even if she had dared to -reveal her own insanity; she could only pluck the lapels of her -brother’s coat, running her dry tongue along her lips.</p> -<p>Something in her unusual silence must have stirred through the boy’s own -misery, for after a moment or so he looked up, at first dimly, as though -scarcely recognising her. Then—slowly realising her intent glance fixed -on something beyond his own shoulder, he turned—and saw.</p> -<p>Twenty yards or more off, on a mound of coarse grass and sand just above -the high-tide mark, “It” was sitting, its long arms wound round its -knees, staring out to sea.</p> -<p>For a moment or so they hung, open-mouthed, wide-eyed.</p> -<p>For the life of her, Rhoda could not have moved a step nearer. The -creature’s heavy shoulders were rounded, its head thrust forward. -Silhouetted against sea and sky, white in contrast to its darkness, it -had the aloofness of incredible age; drawn apart, almost sanctified by -its immeasurable remoteness, its detachment from all that meant life to -the men and women of the twentieth century: the web of fancied -necessities, trivial possessions, absorptions.</p> -<p>“There was no sea—of course, there was no sea anywhere near here then!” -The boy’s whisper opened an incalculable panorama of world-wide change.</p> -<p>There <i>had</i> been no sea here then; no Bristol Channel, no Irish Sea. -Valley and river, that was all!</p> -<p>This alien being who had lived, and more than half-died, in this very -spot, was gazing at something altogether strange: a vast, uneasy sheet -of water with but one visible bank; no golden-brown lights, no shadows, -no reflections: a strange, restless and indifferent god.</p> -<p>“Well—anyhow.... Oh, blazes! here goes! if—” Young Fane broke off with a -decision that cut his doubts, and moved forward.</p> -<p>In a moment the creature was alert, its head flung sideways and up, -sniffing the air like a dog.</p> -<p>It half turned, as though to run; then, as the boy stopped short, it -paused.</p> -<p>“Rhoda—get the grub—go quietly—don’t run.... Bread-and-butter—anything!”</p> -<p>They had flung down the frail with the bottle of milk, cake, -bread-and-butter that they had brought with them—enough for tea and -supper—heedless in their despair. Rhoda moved a step or two away, picked -up a packet, unfolded it and thrust the food into her brother’s -hand—cake, a propitiation!</p> -<p>The strange figure, upright—and yet not upright as it is counted in -these days—remained stationary; there was one quick turn of the head -following her, then the poise of it showed eyes immovably fixed upon the -male.</p> -<p>Hector moved forward very slowly, one smooth step after another. Rhoda -had seen him like that with wild birds and rabbits. He wore an old suit -of shrunken flannels, faded to a yellowish-grey, which blurred him into -the landscape. Far enough off to catch his outline against the molten -glare of the sea, she noted that his shoulders were almost as bent as -those of that Other.... Other what?—man?—ape? The speculation zigzagged -to and fro like lightning through her mind. She could scarcely breathe -for anxiety.</p> -<p>As the boy drew quite near to the dull, brownish figure it jerked its -head uneasily aside—she knew what Hector’s eyes were like, a steady, -luminous grey under the bent brows—made a swinging movement with its -arms, half turned; then stopped, stared sideways, crouching, sniffing.</p> -<p>The boy’s arm was held out at its fullest stretch in front of him. -Heaven—the old, old gods—only knew upon what beast-torn carrion the -creature had once fed; but it was famished, and some instinct must have -told it that here was food, for it snatched and crammed its mouth.</p> -<p>Hector turned and Rhoda’s heart was in her throat, for there was no -knowing what it might not do at that. But as he moved steadily away, -without so much as a glance behind him, it hesitated, threw up its hand, -as though to strike or throw; then followed.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>That was the beginning of it. During those first days it would have -followed him to the end of the world. Later on, he told himself bitterly -that he had been a fool not to have seen further; gone off anywhere—oh, -anywhere, so long as it was far enough—dragging the brute after him -while his leadership still held.</p> -<p>It was with difficulty that they prevented it from dogging them back to -the Rectory—just imagine it tailing through the village at their heels! -But once it understood that it must stay where it was, it sat down on a -grassy hummock, crouching with its arms round its knees, one hand -tightly clenched, its small, light eyes, overhung by that portentous -brow, following them with a look of desolate loneliness.</p> -<p>Again and again the boy and girl glanced back, but it still sat there -staring after them, immovable in the spot which Hector had indicated to -it. They had left it all the food they had with them, and one of the -blankets which they had been too hot to carry home that morning. As it -plainly had not known what to do with the thing, Rhoda, overcome by a -sort of motherliness, had thrown it over its shoulders. Thus it sat, -shrouded like an Arab, its shaggy head cut like a giant burr against the -pale primrose sky.</p> -<p>“A beastly shame leaving it alone like that!” They both felt it; -scarcely liked to meet each other’s eyes over it. And yet, pity it as -they might, engrossed in it as they were, they couldn’t stay there with -it after dark. No reason, no fear—just couldn’t! Why? Oh, well, for all -its new-found life, it was as far away as any ghost.</p> -<p>“Poor brute!” said Rhoda.</p> -<p>“Poor chap!” Hector’s under-lip was thrust out, his look aggressive. But -there was no argument; and when he treated her—“Don’t be silly; of -course it’s not a man; any duffer could see that”—with contemptuous -silence, Rhoda knew that he was absolutely fixed in his convictions.</p> -<p>He proved it, too, next morning, leading the creature out into the -half-dried mud and back again to where his sister sat, following his -apparently aimless movements with puzzled eyes.</p> -<p>“Now, look,” he crowed. “Just you look, Miss Blooming-Cocksure!”</p> -<p>He was right. There was the mark of his own heavy nailed boot, and -beside it the track of other feet; oddly-shaped enough, but with the -weight distinctly thrown upon the heel and great-toe, as no beast save -man has ever yet thrown it—that fine developed great-toe, the emblem of -leadership. Hardly a trace of such pressure as the three greater apes -show, all on the outer edge of the foot; not even flat and even as the -baboon throws his.</p> -<p>It was after this that—without another word said—Rhoda, meek for once, -followed her brother’s example, and began to speak of the creature as -“He.”</p> -<p>They even gave him a name. They called him Hodge; only in fun, and yet -with a feeling that here was one of the first of all countrymen: less -learned, and yet in some way so much more observant, self-sufficing, -than his machine-made successors.</p> -<p>He could run at an almost incredible rate, bent as he was; climb any -tree; out-throw either of them, doubling the distance. It was there that -they got at the meaning of that closed fist; for at least three days he -had never let go of his stone—his one weapon.</p> -<p>“He didn’t trust us.” Rhoda was hurt, her vanity touched; and when they -had seemed to be making such progress, too!</p> -<p>“Not that—a sort of ingrained habit; the poor devil didn’t feel dressed -without it,” protested Hector. “Of course he trusts us as much as a -perfectly natural creature ever trusts anything or anybody.”</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>The Rector had gone on a visit to their only relative, an old aunt, who -was dying in as leisurely a fashion as she had lived, and was unable to -leave her. A neighbouring curate took that next Sunday’s service.</p> -<p>It had been a Monday when Hector found Hodge, and a very great deal can -happen in that time.</p> -<p>From the first it had seemed clear that nothing in the way of -communicating with authorities, experts, could be done until their -father was there to back them, adding his own testimony. It was no good -just writing—Hector did, indeed, begin a letter to Sir Ray Lankester, -but tore it up, appalled by his own formless, boyish handwriting. “He’d -think we were just getting at him—a couple of silly kids,” was his -reflection.</p> -<p>He knew a lot for his age; was very certain of his own knowledge; felt -no personal fear of this wild man of his. But ordinary grown-up people! -That was altogether a different matter. And here he touched the -primitive mistrust of all real youth for anything too completely -finished and sophisticated.</p> -<p>Of course, from the very beginning, there were all sorts of minor -troubles with Matty over their continued thefts of food; difficulties in -keeping the creature away from the house and village.</p> -<p>But all that was nothing to what followed.</p> -<p>The first dim, unformulated sense of fear began on the night when -Hector, awakened by a loud rustling among the leaves of that one tree, -discovered Hodge there, climbing along a bough which ended close against -Rhoda’s window.</p> -<p>Rhoda’s, not his—that was the queer part of it!</p> -<p>The boy felt half huffed as he drove him off. But when he came again, -some instinct, something far less plain than thought, began to worry -him: something which seemed ludicrous, until it gathered and grew to a -feeling of nausea so horrible that the cold sweat pricked out upon his -breast and forehead.</p> -<p>At the third visit the fear was more defined. But still.... That brute -“smitten” with Rhoda! He tried to laugh it off. Anyhow, what did it -matter? And yet.... Hang it all! there was something sickening about it -all. It was impossible to sleep at night, listening, always listening.</p> -<p>He was only thirteen. Of course he had heard other chaps talking, but he -had no real idea of the fierce drive of physical desire. And yet it was -plain enough that here was something “beastly” beyond all words.</p> -<p>He told Rhoda to keep her window bolted, and when she protested against -such “fugging,” touched on his own fears, tried, awkwardly enough, to -explain without explaining.</p> -<p>“I’m funky about Hodge—he’s taken to following us. He might get in—bag -something.”</p> -<p>“The darling!” cried Rhoda. “Look here, old chap. I really believe he’s -fond of me; fonder of me than of you!”</p> -<p>She persisted in putting it to the test next day; left “Hodge” sitting -by her brother, and walked away.</p> -<p>The creature moved his head uneasily from side to side, glanced at -Hector, and his glance was full of hatred, malevolence; then, scrambling -furtively to his feet, helping himself with his hands, one fist -tight-closed, in the old fashion, he passed round the back of the boy, -and followed her.</p> -<p>For a minute or two Hector sat hunched together, staring doggedly out to -sea. If Rhoda chose to make an ass of herself—well, let her. After all, -what could the brute do? She was bigger than he was, had nothing on her -worth stealing; nothing of any use to Hodge, anyhow, he told himself.</p> -<p>Then, of a sudden, that half-formulated dread, that sick panic seized -him afresh. He glanced round; both Hodge and his sister were out of -sight, and he started to run with all his might, shouting.</p> -<p>There was an answering cry from Rhoda, shriller than usual, with a note -of panic in it. This gave him the direction; and, plunging off among a -group of shallow sand-dunes, he found himself almost upon them.</p> -<p>Rhoda was drawn up very straight, laughing nervously, her shoulders -back, flushed to the eyes, while Hodge stood close in front of her, -gabbling—they had tried him with their own words, but the oddly-angled -jaw had seemed to cramp the tongue beyond hope of articulate -speech—gabbling, gesticulating.</p> -<p>“Oh, Hector!” The girl’s cry was full of relief as she swung sideways -toward him; while Hodge, glancing round, saw him, raised his hand, and -threw.</p> -<p>The stone just grazed the boy’s cheek, drawing a spurt of blood; but -this was enough for Rhoda, who forgot her own panic in a flame of -indignation.</p> -<p>The creature could not have understood a word of what she said: her -denunciation, abuse, “the wigging” she gave him. But her look was -enough, and he shrank aside, shamed as a beaten dog.</p> -<p>They did not bid him good-night. They had taught him to shake hands; but -now that he was in disgrace all that was over, and they turned aside -with the set severity of youth: bent brows and straightened, hard -mouths.</p> -<p>Rhoda was the first to relent, half-way home, breaking their silence -with a laugh: “Poor old Hodge! I don’t know why I was so scared—I must -have got him rattled, or he’d never have thrown that stone. Why, it was -always you he liked best, followed,” she added magnanimously.</p> -<p>And yet she was puzzled, all on edge, as she had never been before. The -look Hodge had cast at her brother was unmistakable; but why?—why? What -had changed him? She never even thought of that passion common to man -and beast, interwoven with all desire, hatred—the lees of love—jealousy.</p> -<p>All that evening Hector scarcely spoke. He was not so much scared as -gravely anxious in a man’s way. If that brute got him with a stone, what -would happen to Rhoda? Even supposing that there had been anyone to -consult, he could not, for the life of him, have put his fear into -words. So much a man, he was yet too much a boy for that. Terrified of -ridicule, incredulity, he hugged his secret, as that strange man-beast -hugged his—the highest and lowest—the most primitive and the most -cultured—forever uncommunicative; those in the midway the babblers.</p> -<p>He was so firm in his insistence upon Rhoda changing her room that night -that she gave way, without argument, overawed by his gravity, by an odd, -chill sense of fear which hung about her. “I must have got a cold. I’ve -a sort of feeling of a goose walking over my grave,” was what she said -laughingly, half-shamefaced, accustomed as she was to attribute every -feeling to some natural cause.</p> -<p>That night, soon after midnight, the brute was back in the tree. Hector -heard the rustling, then the spring and swish of a released bough. -Before he lay down he had unbolted one of the long bars from the -underneath part of his old-fashioned iron bedstead; and, now taking it -in his hand, he ran to Rhoda’s room.</p> -<p>The white-washed walls and ceiling were so flooded with moonlight that -it was almost as light as day.</p> -<p>Hodge was already in the room: the clothes were torn from the bed; the -cupboard doors wide open; the whole place littered with feminine attire.</p> -<p>He—It—the impersonal pronoun slid into its place in the boy’s mind, and -no words of self-reproach or condemnation could have said more—stood at -the foot of the empty bed, with something white—it might have been a -chemise—in its hand, held up to its face. Hector could not catch its -expression, but there was something inexpressibly bestial in the -silhouette of its head, bent, sniffing; he could actually hear the -whistling breath.</p> -<p>He would have given anything if only it had stayed, fought it out then. -But it belonged to a state too far away for that—defensive, at times -aggressive, but forever running, hiding, slinking: a thrower from among -thick boughs behind tree-trunks—and in a moment it was out of the -window, bundling over the sill, so clumsy and yet so amazingly quick.</p> -<p>He could hear the swing of a bough as it caught it. There was a loud -rustle of leaves, and a stone hurtled in through the window; but that -was all.</p> -<p>Hector tidied the room, tossed the scattered garments into the bottom of -the wardrobe, and re-made the bed in his awkward boy-fashion, moving -mechanically, as if in a dream; his hands busied over his petty tasks, -his mind engrossed with something so tremendous that he seemed to be two -separate people, of which the one, the greater, revolved slowly and -certainly in an unalterable orbit, quite apart from his old everyday -life, from that Hector Fane whom he had always known, thought of, spoken -of as “myself.”</p> -<p>He went to his own room, put on his collar and coat—for he had lain down -upon his bed without undressing, every nerve on edge—laced up his boots -with meticulous care. He was no longer frightened or hurried; he knew -exactly what he was going to do, and that alone hung him—moving slowly, -surely—as upon a pivot.</p> -<p>The moonlight was so clear that there was no need for a candle, flooding -the stairway, the study with its shabby book-shelves.</p> -<p>Easy enough to take the old shot-gun from the nails over the -mantelshelf; only last holiday—years and years ago, while he was still a -child—he had been allowed to use it for wild-duck shooting—and run his -hand along the back of the writing-table drawer in search of those three -or four cartridges which he had seen there a couple of days earlier.</p> -<p>The cartridges in his pocket swung against his hip as he mounted his -bicycle and rode away—guiding himself with one hand, the gun lying -heavily along his left arm; it was like someone nudging, reminding.</p> -<p>The scene was entirely familiar; but what was so strange in himself lent -it an air of something new and uncanny. The winding road had a swing, -drawing him with it; the mingled mist and moonlight were sentient, -watchful, holding their breath.</p> -<p>Once or twice he seemed to catch sight of a low, stooping figure amid -the rough grass and rush-tufted hollows to the left of him; but he could -not be sure until he reached the very shore, left his bicycle in the old -place.</p> -<p>Then a stone grazed his shoulder, and there was a blurred scurry of -brown, from hummock to hummock, low as a hare to the ground.</p> -<p>Once in the open he got a clear sight of Hodge. The far-away tide was on -the flow, but there was still a good half-mile of mud, like lead in the -silvery dawn.</p> -<p>The man-beast bundled down the sandy strip of shore and out on to the -mud: ungainly, stumbling; the boy behind it—“It.” Hector held to that: -the pronoun was altogether reassuring now—something to hold to, hard as -a bone in his brain.</p> -<p>On the edge of the tide it tried to turn, double; then paused, -fascinated, amazed: numb with fear of the strange level pipe pointing, -oddly threatening, the first ray of sunlight running like an arrow of -gold along the top of it.</p> -<p>There was something utterly naïve and piteous in the misplaced -creature’s gesture: the way in which it stood—long arms, short, bandy -legs—moving its head uneasily from side to side; bewildered, yet -fascinated.</p> -<p>“Poor beggar!” muttered Hector. He could not have said why, but he was -horribly sorry, ashamed, saddened.</p> -<p>Years later he thought more clearly—“Poor beggar! After all, what did he -want but life—more life—the complete life of any man—or animal, either, -come to that!”</p> -<p>As he pressed his finger to the trigger he saw the rough brown figure -throw up its arms, leap high in the air, and drop.</p> -<p>Something like a red-hot iron burnt up the back of his own neck; his -head throbbed. After all, what did death matter when life was so rotten, -so inexplicable? It wasn’t that, only—only.... Well, it was beastly to -feel so tired, so altogether gone to pieces.</p> -<p>With bent head he made his way, ploughing through the mud and sand, back -to the shore; sat down rather suddenly, with a feeling as though the -ground had risen up to meet him, and winding his arms round his knees, -stared out to sea; washed through and through, swept by an immense sense -of grief, a desperate regret which had nothing whatever to do with his -immediate action—the death of Hodge.</p> -<p>That was something which had to be gone through with; it wasn’t that—not -exactly that.... But, oh, the futility, the waste of ... well, of -everything!</p> -<p>“Rotten luck!” He shuddered as he dragged himself wearily to his feet. -He could not have gone before, not while there was the mud with “that” -on it; not even so long as the shining sands were bare. It would have -seemed too hurried, almost indecent. But now that an unbroken, -glittering sheet of water lapped the very edge of the shore, the funeral -ceremony—with all its pomp of sunrise—was over; and, turning aside, he -stumbled wearily through the rough grass to the place where he had left -his bicycle.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Hatteras' id='s8'>HATTERAS</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By A. W. MASON</p> -<p>The story was told to me by James Walker in the cabin of a seven-ton -cutter, one night when we lay anchored in Helford River. It was towards -the end of September; during this last week the air had grown chilly -with the dusk, and the sea when it lost the sun took on a leaden and a -dreary look. There was no other boat on the wooded creek and the swish -of the tide against the planks had a very lonesome sound. All these -circumstances I think provoked Walker to tell the story, but most of all -the lonely swish of the tide against the planks. For it is the story of -a man’s loneliness and the strange ways into which loneliness misled his -soul. However, let the story speak for itself.</p> -<p>Hatteras and Walker had been schoolfellows, though never classmates. -Hatteras indeed was the head of the school and prophecy vaguely sketched -out for him a brilliant career in some service of importance. The -definite law, however, that the sins of the fathers shall be visited -upon the children overbore this prophecy. Hatteras, the father, -disorganized his son’s future by dropping unexpectedly through one of -the trapways of speculation into the Bankruptcy Court beneath, just two -months before Hatteras, the son, was to have gone up to Oxford. The lad -was therefore compelled to start life in a stony world with a -stock-in-trade which consisted of a schoolboy’s command of the classics, -a real inborn gift of tongues and the friendship of James Walker.</p> -<p>The last item proved of the most immediate value. For Walker, whose -father was the junior partner in a firm of West African merchants, -obtained for Hatteras an employment as the bookkeeper at a branch -factory in the Bight of Benin.</p> -<p>Thus the friends parted. Hatteras went out to West Africa alone, and met -with a strange welcome on the day when he landed. The incident did not -come to Walker’s ears until some time afterwards, nor when he heard of -it did he at once appreciate the effect which it had upon Hatteras. But -chronologically it comes into the story at this point, and so may as -well be immediately told.</p> -<p>There was no settlement very near to the factory. It stood by itself on -the swamps of the Forcados River with the mangrove forest closing in -about it. Accordingly the captain of the steamer just put Hatteras -ashore in a boat and left him with his traps on the beach. Half-a-dozen -Kru boys had come down from the factory to receive him, but they could -speak no English, and Hatteras at this time could speak no Kru. So that -although there was no lack of conversation there was not much -interchange of thought. At last Hatteras pointed to his traps. The Kru -boys picked them up and preceded Hatteras to the factory. They mounted -the steps to the verandah on the first floor and laid their loads down. -Then they proceeded to further conversation. Hatteras gathered from -their excited faces and gestures that they wished to impart information, -but he could make neither head nor tail of a word they said, and at last -he retired from the din of their chatter through the windows of a room -which gave on to the verandah, and sat down to wait for his superior, -the agent.</p> -<p>It was early in the morning when Hatteras landed and he waited until -midday patiently. In the afternoon it occurred to him that the agent -would have shown a kindly consideration if he had left a written message -or an intelligible Kru boy to receive him. It is true that the blacks -came in at intervals and chattered and gesticulated, but matters were -not thereby appreciably improved. He did not like to go poking about the -house, so he contemplated the mud banks and the mud river and the -mangrove forest, and cursed the agent. The country was very quiet. There -are few things quieter than a West African forest in the daytime. It is -obtrusively, emphatically quiet. It does not let you forget how -singularly quiet it is. And towards sundown the quietude began to jar on -Hatteras’ nerves. He was besides very hungry. To while away the time he -took a stroll round the verandah.</p> -<p>He walked along the side of the houses towards the back, and as he -neared the back he heard a humming sound. The further he went the louder -it grew. It was something like the hum of a mill, only not so metallic -and not so loud; and it came from the rear of the house.</p> -<p>Hatteras turned the corner and what he saw was this—a shuttered window -and a cloud of flies. The flies were not aimlessly swarming outside the -window; they streamed in through the lattice of the shutters in a busy, -practical way; they came in columns from the forest and converged upon -the shutters; and the hum sounded from within the room.</p> -<p>Hatteras looked about for a Kru boy for the sake of company, but at that -moment there was not one to be seen.</p> -<p>He felt the cold strike at his spine. He went back into the room in -which he had been sitting. He sat again but he sat shivering. The agent -had left no word for him.... The Kru boys had been anxious to -explain—something. The humming of the flies about that shuttered window -seemed to Hatteras a more explicit language than the Kru boys’ -chatterings. He penetrated into the interior of the house, and reckoned -up the doors. He opened one of them ever so slightly and the buzzing -came through like the hum of a wheel in a factory revolving in the -collar of a strap. He flung the door open and stood upon the threshold. -The atmosphere of the room appalled him; he felt the sweat break cold -upon his forehead and a deadly sickness in all his body. Then he nerved -himself to enter.</p> -<p>At first he saw little because of the gloom. In a while, however, he -made out a bed stretched along the wall and a thing stretched upon the -bed. The thing was more or less shapeless because it was covered with a -black furry sort of rug. Hatteras, however, had little trouble in -defining it. He knew now for certain what it was that the Kru boys had -been so anxious to explain to him. He approached the bed and bent over -it, and as he bent over it the horrible thing occurred which left so -vivid an impression on Hatteras. The black furry rug suddenly lifted -itself from the bed, beat about Hatteras’ face, and dissolved into -flies. The Kru boys found Hatteras in a dead swoon on the floor -half-an-hour later, and next day, of course, he was down with the fever. -The agent had died of it three days before.</p> -<p>Hatteras recovered from the fever, but not from the impression. It left -him with a prevailing sense of horror and, at first, with a sense of -disgust too.</p> -<p>“It’s an obscene country,” he would say. But he stayed in it, for he had -no choice. All the money which he could save went to the support of his -family, and for six years the firm he served moved him from district to -district, from factory to factory.</p> -<p>Now the second item of his stock-in-trade was a gift of tongues, and -about this time it began to bring him profit. Wherever Hatteras was -posted, he managed to pick up a native dialect, and with the dialect -inevitably a knowledge of native customs. Dialects are numerous on the -west coast, and at the end of six years Hatteras could speak as many of -them as some traders could enumerate. Languages ran in his blood; he -acquired a reputation for knowledge and was offered service under the -Niger Protectorate, so that when, two years later, Walker came out to -Africa to open a new branch factory at a settlement on the Bonny River, -he found Hatteras stationed in command there.</p> -<p>Hatteras, in fact, went down to Bonny River town to meet the steamer -which brought his friend.</p> -<p>“I say, Dick, you look bad,” said Walker.</p> -<p>“People are not, as a rule, offensively robust about these parts.”</p> -<p>“I know that; but you’re the weariest bag of bones I’ve ever seen.”</p> -<p>“Well, look at yourself in a glass a year from now for my double,” said -Hatteras, and the pair went up river together.</p> -<p>“Your factory is next to the Residency,” said Hatteras. “There’s a -compound to each running down to the river, and there’s a palisade -between the compounds. I’ve cut a little gate in the palisade as it will -shorten the way from one house to the other.”</p> -<p>The wicket gate was frequently used during the next few months—indeed -more frequently than Walker imagined. He was only aware that, when they -were both at home, Hatteras would come through it of an evening and -smoke on his verandah. There he would sit for hours cursing the country, -raving about the lights of Piccadilly Circus, and offering his immortal -soul in exchange for a comic opera tune played upon a barrel-organ. -Walker possessed a big atlas, and one of Hatteras’ chief diversions was -to trace with his finger a bee-line across the African continent and the -Bay of Biscay until he reached London.</p> -<p>More rarely Walker would stroll over to the Residency, but he soon came -to notice that Hatteras had a distinct preference for the factory and -for the factory verandah. The reason for the preference puzzled Walker -considerably. He drew a quite erroneous conclusion that Hatteras was -hiding at the Residency—well, someone whom it was prudent, especially in -an official, to conceal. He abandoned the conclusion, however, when he -discovered that his friend was in the habit of making solitary -expeditions. At times Hatteras would be absent for a couple of days, at -times for a week, and, so far as Walker could ascertain, he never so -much as took a servant with him to keep him company. He would simply -announce at night his intended departure, and in the morning he would be -gone. Nor on his return did he ever offer to Walker any explanation of -his journeys. On one occasion, however, Walker broached the subject. -Hatteras had come back the night before, and he sat crouched up in a -deck chair, looking intently into the darkness of the forest.</p> -<p>“I say,” asked Walker, “isn’t it rather dangerous to go slumming about -West Africa alone?”</p> -<p>Hatteras did not reply for a moment. He seemed not to have heard the -suggestion, and when he did speak it was to ask a quite irrelevant -question.</p> -<p>“Have you ever seen the Horse Guards’ Parade on a dark rainy night?” he -asked; but he never moved his head, he never took his eyes from the -forest. “The wet level of ground looks just like a lagoon and the arches -a Venice palace above it.”</p> -<p>“But look here, Dick!” said Walker, keeping to his subject, “you never -leave word when you are coming back. One never knows that you have come -back until you show yourself the morning after.”</p> -<p>“I think,” said Hatteras slowly, “that the finest sight in the world is -to be seen from the bridge in St. James’ Park when there’s a State Ball -on at Buckingham Palace and the light from the windows reddens the lake -and the carriages glance about the Mall like fireflies.”</p> -<p>“Even your servants don’t know when you come back,” said Walker.</p> -<p>“Oh,” said Hatteras quietly, “so you have been asking questions of my -servants?”</p> -<p>“I had a good reason,” replied Walker. “Your safety”; and with that the -conversation dropped.</p> -<p>Walker watched Hatteras. Hatteras watched the forest. A West African -mangrove forest night is full of the eeriest, queerest sounds that ever -a man’s ears hearkened to. And the sounds come not so much from the -birds or the soughing of branches; they seem to come from the swamp-life -underneath the branches, at the roots of the trees. There’s a ceaseless -stir as of a myriad reptiles creeping in the slime. Listen long enough -and you will fancy that you hear the whirr and rush of innumerable -crabs, the flapping of innumerable fish. Now and again a more -distinctive sound emerges from the rest—the croaking of a bull-frog, the -whining cough of a crocodile. At such sounds Hatteras would start up in -his chair and cock his head like a dog in a room that hears another dog -barking in the street.</p> -<p>“Doesn’t it sound damned wicked?” he said with a queer smile of -enjoyment.</p> -<p>Walker did not answer. The light from a lamp in the room behind them -struck obliquely upon Hatteras’ face and slanted off from it in a -narrowing column until it vanished in a yellow thread among the leaves -of the trees. It showed that the same enjoyment which rang in Hatteras’ -voice was alive upon his face. His eyes, his ears, were alert, and he -gently opened and shut his mouth with a little clicking of the teeth. In -some horrible way he seemed to have something in common with, he -appeared almost to participate in, the activity of the swamp. Thus had -Walker often seen him sit, but never with the light so clear upon his -face, and the sight gave to him a quite new impression of his friend. He -wondered whether all these months his judgment had been wrong. And out -of that wonder a new thought sprang into his mind.</p> -<p>“Dick,” he said, “this house of mine stands between your house and the -forest. It stands on the borders of the trees, on the edge of the swamp. -Is that why you prefer it to your own?”</p> -<p>Hatteras turned his head quickly towards his companion, almost -suspiciously. Then he looked back into the darkness, and after a little -said:</p> -<p>“It’s not only the things you care about, old man, which tug at you; -it’s the things you hate as well. I hate this country. I hate these -miles and miles of mangroves, and yet I am fascinated. I can’t get the -forests and the undergrowth and the swamp out of my mind. I dream of -them at night. I dream that I am sinking into that black oily batter of -mud. Listen,” and he suddenly broke off with his head stretched forward. -“Doesn’t it sound wicked?”</p> -<p>“But all this talk about London?” cried Walker.</p> -<p>“Oh, don’t you understand?” interrupted Hatteras roughly. Then he -changed his tone and gave his reason quietly. “One has to struggle -against a fascination of that sort. It’s devil’s work. So for all I am -worth I talk about London.”</p> -<p>“Look here, Dick,” said Walker. “You had better get leave and go back to -the old country for a spell.”</p> -<p>“A very solid piece of advice,” said Hatteras, and he went home to the -Residency.</p> -<p>The next morning he had again disappeared. But Walker discovered upon -his table a couple of new volumes, and glanced at the titles. They were -Burton’s account of his pilgrimage to El Medinah and Mecca.</p> -<p>Five nights afterwards Walker was smoking a pipe on the verandah when he -fancied that he heard a rubbing, scuffling sound as if someone very -cautiously was climbing over the fence of his compound. The moon was low -in the sky and dipping down toward the forest, indeed the rim of it -touched the treetops so that while a full half of the enclosure was lit -by the yellow light, that half which bordered on the forest was inky -black in shadow, and it was from the furthest corner of this second half -that the sound came. Walker leaned forward listening. He heard the sound -again, and a moment after a second sound, which left him in no doubt. -For in that dark corner he knew that a number of palisades for repairing -the fence were piled, and the second sound which he heard was a rattle -as someone stumbled against them. Walker went inside and fetched a -rifle.</p> -<p>When he came back he saw a negro creeping across the bright open space -towards the Residency. Walker hailed to him to stop. Instead the negro -ran. He ran towards the wicket gate in the palisade. Walker shouted -again; the figure only ran the faster. He had covered half the distance -before Walker fired. He clutched his right forearm with his left hand, -but he did not stop. Walker fired again, this time at his legs, and the -man dropped to the ground. Walker heard his servants stirring as he ran -down the steps. He crossed quickly to the negro and the negro spoke to -him, but in English, and with the voice of Hatteras.</p> -<p>“For God’s sake keep your servants off!”</p> -<p>Walker ran to the house, met his servants at the foot of the steps and -ordered them back. He had shot at a monkey he said. Then he returned to -Hatteras.</p> -<p>“Dicky, are you hurt?” he whispered.</p> -<p>“You hit me each time you fired, but not very badly, I think.”</p> -<p>He bandaged Hatteras’ arm and thigh with strips of his shirt, and waited -by his side until the house was quiet. Then he lifted him and carried -him across the enclosure to the steps, and up the steps into his -bedroom. It was a long and fatiguing process. For one thing Walker dared -make no noise and must needs tread lightly with his load; for another, -the steps were steep and rickety, with a narrow balustrade on each side -waist-high. It seemed to Walker that the day would dawn before he -reached the top. Once or twice Hatteras stirred in his arms, and he -feared the man would die then and there. For all the time his blood -dripped and pattered like heavy raindrops on the wooden steps.</p> -<p>Walker laid Hatteras on his bed and examined his wounds. One bullet had -passed through the fleshy part of the forearm, the other through the -fleshy part of his right thigh. But no bones were broken and no arteries -cut. Walker lit a fire, baked some plantain leaves, and applied them as -a poultice. Then he went out with a pail of water and scrubbed down the -steps. Again he dared not make any noise; and it was close on daybreak -before he had done. His night’s work, however, was not ended. He had -still to cleanse the black stain from Hatteras’ skin, and the sun was up -before he stretched a rug upon the ground and went to sleep with his -back against the door.</p> -<p>“Walker,” Hatteras called out in a loud voice, an hour or so later.</p> -<p>Walker woke up and crossed over to the bed.</p> -<p>“Dicky, I’m frightfully sorry. I couldn’t know it was you.”</p> -<p>“That’s all right, Jim. Don’t you worry about that. What I wanted to say -was that nobody had better know. It wouldn’t do, would it, if it got -about?”</p> -<p>“Oh, I am not so sure. People would think it a rather creditable -proceeding.”</p> -<p>Hatteras shot a puzzled look at his friend. Walker, however, did not -notice it, and continued, “I saw Burton’s account of his pilgrimage in -your room; I might have known that journeys of the kind were just the -sort of thing to appeal to you.”</p> -<p>“Oh, yes, that’s it,” said Hatteras, lifting himself up in bed. He spoke -eagerly—perhaps a thought too eagerly. “Yes, that’s it. I have always -been keen on understanding the natives thoroughly. It’s after all no -less than one’s duty if one has to rule them, and since I could speak -their lingo—” he broke off and returned to the subject which had -prompted him to rouse Walker. “But, all the same, it wouldn’t do if the -natives got to know.”</p> -<p>“There’s no difficulty about that,” said Walker. “I’ll give out that you -have come back with the fever and that I am nursing you. Fortunately -there’s no doctor handy to come making inconvenient examinations.”</p> -<p>Hatteras knew something of surgery, and under his directions Walker -poulticed and bandaged him until he recovered. The bandaging, however, -was amateurish, and, as a result, the muscles contracted in Hatteras’ -thigh and he limped—ever so slightly, still he limped—he limped to his -dying day. He did not, however, on that account abandon his -explorations, and more than once Walker, when his lights were out and he -was smoking a pipe on the verandah, would see a black figure with a -trailing walk cross his compound and pass stealthily through the wicket -in the fence. Walker took occasion to expostulate with his friend.</p> -<p>“It’s too dangerous a game for a man to play for any length of time. It -is doubly dangerous now that you limp. You ought to give it up.”</p> -<p>Hatteras made a strange reply.</p> -<p>“I’ll try to,” he said.</p> -<p>Walker pondered over the words for some time. He set them side by side -in his thoughts with that confession which Hatteras had made to him one -evening. He asked himself whether, after all, Hatteras’ explanation of -his conduct was sincere, whether it was really a desire to know the -native thoroughly which prompted those mysterious expeditions, and then -he remembered that he himself had first suggested the explanation to -Hatteras. Walker began to feel uneasy—more than uneasy, actually afraid -on his friend’s account. Hatteras had acknowledged that the country -fascinated him, and fascinated him through its hideous side. Was this -masquerading as a black man a further proof of the fascination? Was it, -as it were, a step downwards towards a closer association? Walker sought -to laugh the notion from his mind, but it returned and returned, and -here and there an incident occurred to give it strength and colour.</p> -<p>For instance, on one occasion after Hatteras had been three weeks -absent, Walker sauntered over to the Residency towards four o’clock in -the afternoon. Hatteras was trying cases in the Court-house, which -formed the ground floor of the Residency. Walker stepped into the room. -It was packed with a naked throng of blacks, and the heat was -overpowering. At the end of the hall sat Hatteras. His worn face shone -out amongst the black heads about him white and waxy like a gardenia.</p> -<p>Walker, however, thinking that the Court would rise, determined to wait -for a little. But, at the last moment, a negro was put up to answer to a -charge of participation in fetish rites. The case seemed sufficiently -clear from the outset, but somehow Hatteras delayed its conclusion. -There was evidence and unrebutted evidence of the usual details—human -sacrifice, mutilations, and the like, but Hatteras pressed for more. He -sat until it was dusk, and then had candles brought into the -Court-house. He seemed indeed not so much to be investigating the -negro’s guilt as to be adding to his own knowledge of fetish -ceremonials. And Walker could not but perceive that he took more than a -merely scientific pleasure in the increase of his knowledge. His face -appeared to smooth out, his eyes became quick, interested, almost -excited; and Walker again had the queer impression that Hatteras was in -spirit participating in the loathsome ceremonies, and participating with -an intense enjoyment. In the end the negro was convicted and the Court -rose. But he might have been convicted a good three hours before. Walker -went home shaking his head. He seemed to be watching a man deliberately -divesting himself of his humanity. It seemed as though the white man was -ambitious to decline into the black. Hatteras was growing into an -uncanny creature. His friend began to foresee a time when he should hold -him in loathing and horror. And the next morning helped to confirm him -in that forecast.</p> -<p>For Walker had to make an early start down river for Bonny town, and as -he stood on the landing-stage Hatteras came down to him from the -Residency.</p> -<p>“You heard that negro tried yesterday?” he asked with an assumption of -carelessness.</p> -<p>“Yes, and condemned. What of him?”</p> -<p>“He escaped last night. It’s a bad business, isn’t it?”</p> -<p>Walker nodded in reply and his boat pushed off. But it stuck in his mind -for the greater part of that day that the prison adjoined the -Court-house and so formed part of the ground floor of the Residency. Had -Hatteras connived at his escape? Had the judge secretly set free the -prisoner whom he had publicly condemned?</p> -<p>The question troubled Walker considerably during his month of absence, -and stood in the way of his business. He learned for the first time how -much he loved his friend, and how eagerly he watched for that friend’s -advancement. Each day added to his load of anxiety. He dreamed -continually of a black-painted man slipping among the tree-boles nearer -and nearer, towards the red glare of a fire in some open space secure -amongst the swamps, where hideous mysteries had their celebration. He -cut short his business and hurried back from Bonny. He crossed at once -to the Residency and found his friend in a great turmoil of affairs.</p> -<p>“Jim,” said Hatteras, starting up, “I’ve got a year’s leave; I’m going -home.”</p> -<p>“Dicky!” cried Walker, and he nearly wrung Hatteras’ hand from his arm. -“That’s grand news.”</p> -<p>“Yes, old man, I thought you would be glad; I sail in a fortnight.” And -he did.</p> -<p>For the first month Walker was glad. A year’s leave would make a new man -of Dick Hatteras, he thought, or at all events restore the old man, sane -and sound, as he had been before he came to the West African coast. -During the second month Walker began to feel lonely. In the third he -bought a banjo and learnt it during the fourth and fifth. During the -sixth he began to say to himself, “What a time poor Dick must have had -all those years with these cursed forests about him. I don’t wonder—I -don’t wonder.” He turned disconsolately to his banjo and played for the -rest of the year—all through the wet season while the rain came down in -a steady roar and only the curlews cried—until Hatteras returned. He -returned at the top of his spirits and health. Of course he was -hall-marked West African, but no man gets rid of that stamp. Moreover -there was more than health in his expression. There was a new look of -pride in his eyes, and when he spoke of a bachelor it was in terms of -sympathetic pity.</p> -<p>“Jim,” said he, after five minutes of restraint, “I am engaged to be -married.”</p> -<p>Jim danced round him in delight. “What an ass I have been,” he thought; -“why didn’t I think of that cure myself?” And he asked, “When is it to -be?”</p> -<p>“In eight months. You’ll come home and see me through.”</p> -<p>Walker agreed and for eight months listened to praises of the lady. -There were no more solitary expeditions. In fact, Hatteras seemed -absorbed in the diurnal discovery of new perfections in his future wife.</p> -<p>“Yes, she seems a nice girl,” Walker commented. He found her upon his -arrival in England more human than Hatteras’ conversation had led him to -expect, and she proved to him that she was a nice girl. For she listened -for hours to his lectures on the proper way to treat Dick without the -slightest irritation and with only a faintly visible amusement. Besides -she insisted on returning with her husband to Bonny River, which was a -sufficiently courageous thing to undertake.</p> -<p>For a year in spite of the climate the couple were commonplace and -happy. For a year Walker clucked about them like a hen after its -chickens, and slept the sleep of the untroubled. Then he returned to -England and from that time made only occasional journeys to West Africa. -Thus for a while he almost lost sight of Hatteras, and consequently -still slept the sleep of the untroubled. One morning, however, he -arrived unexpectedly at the settlement and at once called on Hatteras. -He did not wait to be announced, but ran up the steps outside the house -and into the dining-room. He found Mrs. Hatteras crying. She dried her -eyes, welcomed Walker, and said that she was sorry, but her husband was -away.</p> -<p>Walker started, looked at her eyes, and asked hesitatingly whether he -could help. Mrs. Hatteras replied with an ill-assumed surprise that she -did not understand. Walker suggested that there was trouble. Mrs. -Hatteras denied the truth of the suggestion. Walker pressed the point -and Mrs. Hatteras yielded so far as to assert that there was no trouble -in which Hatteras was concerned. Walker hardly thought it the occasion -for a parade of manners, and insisted on pointing out that his knowledge -of her husband was intimate and dated from his schooldays. Therefore -Mrs. Hatteras gave way.</p> -<p>“Dick goes away alone,” she said. “He stains his skin and goes away at -night. He tells me that he must, that it’s the only way by which he can -know the natives, and that so it’s a sort of duty. He says the black -tells nothing of himself to the white man—never. You must go amongst -them if you are to know them. So he goes, and I never know when he will -come back. I never know whether he will come back.”</p> -<p>“But he has done that sort of thing on and off for years, and he has -always come back,” replied Walker.</p> -<p>“Yes, but one day he will not.”</p> -<p>Walker comforted her as well as he could, praised Hatteras for his -conduct, though his heart was hot against him, spoke of risks that every -man must run who serves the Empire. “Never a lotus closes, you know,” he -quoted, and went back to the factory with the consciousness that he had -been telling lies.</p> -<p>It was a sense of duty that prompted Hatteras, of that Walker assured -himself he was certain, and he waited—he waited from darkness to -daybreak in his compound, for three successive nights.</p> -<p>On the fourth he heard the scuffling sound at the corner of the fence. -The night was black as the inside of a coffin. Half a regiment of men -might have passed him and he not have seen them. Accordingly he walked -cautiously to the palisade which separated the enclosure of the -Residency from his own, felt along it until he reached the little gate -and stationed himself in front of it. In a few moments he thought that -he heard a man breathing, but whether to the right or the left he could -not tell; and then a groping hand lightly touched his face and drew away -again. Walker said nothing, but held his breath and did not move. The -hand was stretched out again. This time it touched his breast and moved -across it until it felt a button of Walker’s coat. Then it was snatched -away, and Walker heard a gasping indraw of the breath and afterwards a -sound as of a man turning in a flurry. Walker sprang forward and caught -a naked shoulder with one hand, a naked arm with the other.</p> -<p>“Wait a bit, Dick Hatteras,” he said.</p> -<p>There was a low cry, and then a husky voice addressed him respectfully -as “Daddy” in trade-English.</p> -<p>“That won’t do, Dick,” said Walker.</p> -<p>The voice babbled more trade-English.</p> -<p>“If you’re not Dick Hatteras,” continued Walker, tightening his grasp, -“you’ve no manner of right here. I’ll give you till I count ten, and -then I shall shoot.”</p> -<p>Walker counted up to nine aloud and then——</p> -<p>“Jim,” said Hatteras in his natural voice.</p> -<p>“That’s better,” said Walker. “Let’s go in and talk.”</p> -<p>He went up the steps and lighted the lamp. Hatteras followed him and the -two men faced one another. For a little while neither of them spoke. -Walker was repeating to himself that this man with the black skin, naked -except for a dirty loincloth and a few feathers on his head, was a white -man married to a white wife who was sleeping—nay, more likely crying—not -thirty yards away.</p> -<p>Hatteras began to mumble out his usual explanation of duty and the rest -of it.</p> -<p>“That won’t wash,” interrupted Walker. “What is it? A woman?”</p> -<p>“Good Heaven, no!” cried Hatteras suddenly. It was plain that that -explanation was at all events untrue. “Jim, I’ve a good mind to tell you -all about it.”</p> -<p>“You have got to,” said Walker. He stood between Hatteras and the steps.</p> -<p>“I told you how this country fascinated me in spite of myself,” he -began.</p> -<p>“But I thought,” interrupted Walker, “that you had got over that -since—why, man, you are married,” and he came across to Hatteras and -shook him by the shoulder. “Don’t you understand? You have a wife!”</p> -<p>“I know,” said Hatteras. “But there are things deeper at the heart of me -than the love of woman, and one of these things is the love of horror. I -tell you, it bites as nothing else does in the world. It’s like -absinthe, that turns you sick at the beginning and that you can’t do -without once you have got the taste of it. Do you remember my first -landing? It made me sick enough at the beginning, you know. But now——” -He sat down in a chair and drew it close to Walker. His voice dropped to -a passionate whisper, he locked and unlocked his fingers with feverish -movements, and his eyes shifted and glittered in an unnatural -excitement.</p> -<p>“It’s like going down to hell and coming up again and wanting to go down -again. Oh, you’d want to go down again. You’d find the whole earth pale. -You’d count the days until you went down again. Do you remember Orpheus? -I think he looked back, not to see if Eurydice was coming after him, but -because he knew it was the last glimpse he would get of hell.” At that -he broke off and began to chant in a crazy voice, wagging his head and -swaying his body to the rhythm of the lines—</p> -<p class='poetry'> -Quum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem<br /> -Ignoscenda quidem scirent si ignoscere manes;<br /> -Restitit Eurydicenque suam jam luce sub ipsa<br /> -Immemor heu! victusque animi respexit.<br /> -</p> -<p>“Oh, stop that!” cried Walker, and Hatteras laughed. “For God’s sake, -stop it!”</p> -<p>For the words brought back to him in a flash the vision of a classroom -with its chipped desks ranged against the varnished walls, the droning -sound of the form-master’s voice, and the swish of lilac bushes against -the lower window panes on summer afternoons. Then he said, “Oh, go on, -and let’s have done with it.”</p> -<p>Hatteras took up his tale again, and it seemed to Walker that the man -breathed the very miasma of the swamp and infected the room with it. He -spoke of leopard societies, murder clubs, human sacrifices. He had -witnessed them at the beginning, he had taken his share in them at the -last. He told the whole story without shame, with indeed a glowing -enjoyment. He spared Walker no details. He related them in their -loathsome completeness until Walker felt stunned and sick. “Stop,” he -said again, “stop! That’s enough.”</p> -<p>Hatteras, however, continued. He appeared to have forgotten Walker’s -presence. He told the story to himself, for his own amusement, as a -child will, and here and there he laughed, and the mere sound of his -laughter was inhuman. He only came to a stop when he saw Walker hold out -to him a cocked and loaded revolver.</p> -<p>“Well?” he asked. “Well?”</p> -<p>Walker still offered him the revolver.</p> -<p>“There are cases, I think, which neither God’s law nor man’s law seems -to have provided for. There’s your wife, you see, to be considered. If -you don’t take it I shall shoot you myself now, here, and mark you I -shall shoot you for the sake of a boy I loved at school in the old -country.”</p> -<p>Hatteras took the revolver in silence, laid it on the table, fingered it -for a little.</p> -<p>“My wife must never know,” he said.</p> -<p>“There’s the pistol. Outside’s the swamp. The swamp will tell no tales, -nor shall I. Your wife need never know.”</p> -<p>Hatteras picked up the pistol and stood up.</p> -<p>“Good-bye, Jim,” he said, and half pushed out his hand. Walker shook his -head, and Hatteras went out on the verandah and down the steps.</p> -<p>Walker heard him climb over the fence and then followed as far as the -verandah. In the still night the rustle and swish of the undergrowth -came quite clearly to his ears. The sound ceased, and a few minutes -afterwards the muffled crack of a pistol-shot broke the silence like the -tap of a hammer. The swamp, as Walker prophesied, told no tales. Mrs. -Hatteras gave the one explanation of her husband’s disappearance that -she knew, and returned broken-hearted to England. There was some loud -talk about the self-sacrificing energy which makes the English a -dominant race, and there you might think is the end of the story.</p> -<p>But some years later Walker went trudging up the Ogowe River in Congo -Français. He travelled as far as Woermann’s factory in Njob Island, and, -having transacted his business there, pushed up stream in the hope of -opening the upper reaches for trade purposes. He travelled for a hundred -and fifty miles in a little sternwheel steamer. At that point he -stretched an awning over a whale-boat, embarked himself, his banjo and -eight blacks from the steamer, and rowed for another fifty miles. There -he ran the boat’s nose into a clay cliff close to a Fan village, and -went ashore to negotiate with the chief.</p> -<p>There was a slip of forest between the village and the river banks, and -while Walker was still dodging the palm creepers which tapestried it he -heard a noise of lamentation. The noise came from the village, and was -general enough to assure him that a chief was dead. It rose in a chorus -of discordant howls, low in note and very long drawn out—wordless, -something like the howls of an animal in pain, and yet human by reason -of their infinite melancholy.</p> -<p>Walker pushed forward, came out upon a hillock fronting the palisade -which closed the entrance to the single street of huts, and passed down -into the village. It seemed as though he had been expected. For from -every hut the Fans rushed out towards him, the men dressed in their -filthiest rags, the women with their faces chalked and their heads -shaved. They stopped, however, on seeing a white man, and Walker knew -enough of their tongue to ascertain that they looked for the coming of -the witch-doctor. The chief, it appeared, had died a natural death, and -since the event is of sufficiently rare occurrence in the Fan country, -it had promptly been attributed to witchcraft, and the witch-doctor had -been sent for to discover the criminal. The village was consequently in -a lively state of apprehension, for the end of those who bewitch chiefs -to death is not easy. The Fans, however, politely invited Walker to -inspect the corpse. It lay in a dark hut, packed with the corpse’s -relations, who were shouting to it at the top of their voices on the -off-chance that its spirit might think better of its conduct and return -to the body. They explained to Walker that they had tried all the usual -varieties of persuasion. They had put red pepper into the chief’s eyes -while he was dying; they had propped open his mouth with a stick; they -had burned fibres of the oil-nut under his nose. In fact they had made -his death as uncomfortable as possible, but none the less he had died.</p> -<p>The witch-doctor arrived on the heels of the explanation, and Walker, -since he was powerless to interfere, thought it wise to retire for a -time. He went back to the hillock on the edge of the trees. Thence he -looked across and over the palisade, and had the whole length of the -street within his view.</p> -<p>The witch-doctor entered in from the opposite end to the beating of many -drums. The first thing Walker noticed was that he wore a square-skirted -eighteenth century coat and a tattered pair of brocaded knee breeches on -his bare legs; the second was that he limped—ever so slightly. Still he -limped, and with the right leg. Walker felt a strong desire to see the -man’s face, and his heart thumped within him as he came nearer and -nearer down the street. But his hair was so matted about his cheeks that -Walker could not distinguish a feature. “If I was only near enough to -see his eyes,” he thought. But he was not near enough, nor would it have -been prudent for him to have gone nearer.</p> -<p>The witch-doctor commenced the proceedings by ringing a handbell in -front of every hut. But that method of detection failed to work. The -bell rang successfully at every door. Walker watched the man’s progress, -watched his trailing limb, and began to discover familiarities in his -manner: “Pure fancy,” he argued with himself. “If he had not limped I -should have noticed nothing.”</p> -<p>Then the doctor took a wicker basket, covered with a rough wooden lid. -The Fans gathered in front of him; he repeated their names one after the -other, and at each name he lifted the lid. But that plan appeared to be -no improvement, for the lid never stuck. It came off readily at each -name. Walker, meanwhile, calculated the distance a man would have to -cover who walked across country from Bonny River to the Ogowe, and he -reflected with some relief that the chances were several thousand to one -that any man who made the attempt, be he black or white, would be eaten -on the way.</p> -<p>The witch-doctor turned back the big square cuffs of his sleeves as a -conjurer will do, and again repeated the names. This time, however, at -each name he rubbed the palms of his hands together. Walker was seized -with a sudden longing to rush down into the village and examine the -man’s right forearm for a bullet mark. The longing grew on him. The -witch-doctor went steadily through the list. Walker rose to his feet and -took a step or two down the hillock, when, of a sudden, at one -particular name, the doctor’s hands flew apart and waved wildly about -him. A single cry from a single voice went up out of the group of Fans. -The group fell back and left one man standing alone. He made no defence, -no resistance. Two men came forward and bound his hands and his feet and -his body with tie-tie. Then they carried him within a hut.</p> -<p>“That’s sheer murder,” thought Walker. He could not rescue the victim, -he knew. But he could get a nearer view of the witch-doctor. Already the -man was packing up his paraphernalia. Walker stepped back among the -trees, and running with all his speed, made the circuit of the village. -He reached the further end of the street just as the witch-doctor walked -out into the open.</p> -<p>Walker ran forward a yard or so until he, too, stood plain to see on the -level ground. The witch-doctor did see him and stopped. He stopped only -for a moment and gazed earnestly in Walker’s direction. Then he went on -again towards his own hut in the forest.</p> -<p>Walker made no attempt to follow him. “He has seen me,” he thought. “If -he knows me he will come down to the river bank to-night.” Consequently, -he made the black rowers camp a couple of hundred yards down stream. He -himself remained alone in his canoe.</p> -<p>The night fell noiseless and black, and the enclosing forest made it yet -blacker. A few stars burned in the strip of sky above his head. Those -stars and the glimmering of the clay bank to which the boat was moored -were the only light which Walker had. It was as dark as that night when -Walker waited for Hatteras at the wicket gate.</p> -<p>He placed his gun and a pouch of cartridges on one side, an unlighted -lantern on the other, and then he took up his banjo, and again he -waited. He waited for a couple of hours, until a light crackle as of -twigs snapping came to him out of the forest. Walker struck a chord on -his banjo, and played a hymn tune. He played, “Abide with me,” thinking -that some picture of a home, of a Sunday evening in England’s summer -time, perhaps of a group of girls singing about a piano, might flash -into the darkened mind of the man upon the bank, and draw him as with -cords. The music went tinkling up and down the river, but no one spoke, -no one moved upon the bank. So Walker changed the tune, and played a -melody of the barrel organs and Piccadilly Circus. He had not played -more than a dozen bars, before he heard a sob from the bank, and then -the sound of something sliding down the clay. The next instant, a figure -shone black against the clay. The boat lurched under the weight of a -foot upon the gunwale, and a man plumped down in front of Walker.</p> -<p>“Well, what is it?” asked Walker, as he laid down his banjo and felt for -a match in his pocket.</p> -<p>It seemed as though the words roused the man to a perception that he had -made a mistake. He said as much hurriedly in trade-English, and sprang -up as though he would leap from the boat. Walker caught hold of his -ankle.</p> -<p>“No, you don’t,” said he; “you must have meant to visit me. This isn’t -Henley,” and he jerked the man back into the bottom of the boat.</p> -<p>The man explained that he had paid a visit out of the purest -friendliness.</p> -<p>“You’re the witch-doctor, I suppose,” said Walker.</p> -<p>The other replied that he was, and proceeded to state that he was -willing to give information about much that made white men curious. He -would explain why it was of singular advantage to possess a white man’s -eyeball, and how very advisable it was to kill anyone you caught making -Itung. The danger of passing near a cotton tree which had red earth at -the roots provided a subject which no prudent man should disregard; and -Tando, with his driver ants, was worth conciliating. The witch-doctor -was prepared to explain to Walker how to conciliate Tando. Walker -replied that it was very kind of the witch-doctor, but Tando did not -really worry him. He was, in fact, very much more worried by an -inability to understand how a native so high up the Ogowe River had -learned to speak trade-English.</p> -<p>The witch-doctor waved the question aside, and remarked that Walker must -have enemies. “Pussin bad too much,” he called them. “Pussin woh-woh. -Berrah well! Ah send grand krau-krau and dem pussin die one time.”</p> -<p>Walker could not recollect for the moment any “pussin” whom he wished to -die one time, whether from grand krau-krau or any other disease. “Wait a -bit,” he continued, “there is one man—Dick Hatteras!” and he struck the -match suddenly. The witch-doctor started forward as though to put it -out.</p> -<p>Walker, however, had the door of the lantern open. He set the match to -the wick of the candle, and closed the door fast. The witch-doctor drew -back. Walker lifted the lantern and threw the light on his face. The -witch-doctor buried his face in his hands, and supported his elbows on -his knees. Immediately Walker darted forward a hand, seized the loose -sleeve of the witch-doctor’s coat, and slipped it back along his arm to -the elbow. It was the sleeve of the right arm, and there on the fleshy -part of the forearm was the scar of a bullet.</p> -<p>“Yes,” said Walker. “By God, it is Dick Hatteras!”</p> -<p>“Well?” cried Hatteras, taking his hands from his face. “What the devil -made you tum-tum ‘Tommy Atkins’ on the banjo? Damn you!”</p> -<p>“Dick, I saw you this afternoon.”</p> -<p>“I know, I know. Why on earth didn’t you kill me that night in your -compound?”</p> -<p>“I mean to make up for that mistake to-night!”</p> -<p>Walker took his rifle on to his knee. Hatteras saw the movement, leaned -forward quickly, snatched up the rifle, snatched up the cartridges, -thrust a couple of cartridges into the breech, and handed the loaded -rifle back to his old friend.</p> -<p>“That’s right,” he said. “I remember. ‘There are some cases neither -God’s law nor man’s law has quite made provision for.’” And then he -stopped, with his finger on his lip. “Listen!” he said.</p> -<p>From the depths of the forest there came faintly, very sweetly the sound -of church-bells ringing—a peal of bells ringing at midnight in the heart -of West Africa. Walker was startled. The sound seemed fairy work, so -faint, so sweet was it.</p> -<p>“It’s no fancy, Jim,” said Hatteras, “I hear them every night, and at -matins and vespers. There was a Jesuit monastery here two hundred years -ago. The bells remain, and some of the clothes.” He touched his coat as -he spoke. “The Fans still ring the bells from habit. Just think of it! -Every morning, every evening, every midnight, I hear those bells. They -talk to me of little churches perched on hillsides in the old country, -of hawthorn lanes, and women—English women. English girls—thousands of -miles away, going along them to church. God help me! Jim, have you got -an English pipe?”</p> -<p>“Yes; an English briarwood and some bird’s-eye.”</p> -<p>Walker handed Hatteras his briarwood and his pouch of tobacco. Hatteras -filled the pipe, lit it at the lantern, and sucked at it avidly for a -moment. Then he gave a sigh and drew in the smoke more slowly and yet -more slowly.</p> -<p>“My wife?” he asked at last, in a low voice.</p> -<p>“She is in England. She thinks you dead.”</p> -<p>Hatteras nodded.</p> -<p>“There’s a jar of Scotch whisky in the locker behind you,” said Walker.</p> -<p>Hatteras turned round, lifted out the jar and a couple of tin cups. He -poured whisky into each and handed one to Walker.</p> -<p>“No, thanks,” said Walker. “I don’t think I will.”</p> -<p>Hatteras looked at his companion for an instant. Then he emptied -deliberately both cups over the side of the boat. Next he took the pipe -from his lips. The tobacco was not half consumed. He poised the pipe for -a little in his hand. Then he blew into the bowl and watched the dull -red glow kindle into sparks of flame as he blew. Very slowly he tapped -the bowl against the thwart of the boat until the burning tobacco fell -with a hiss into the water. He laid the pipe gently down and stood up.</p> -<p>“So long, old man,” he said, and sprang out on the clay. Walker turned -the lantern until the light made a disc upon the bank.</p> -<p>“Good-bye, Jim,” said Hatteras, and he climbed up the bank until he -stood in the light of the lantern. Twice Walker raised the rifle to his -shoulder, twice he lowered it. Then he remembered that Hatteras and he -had been at school together.</p> -<p>“Good-bye, Dicky,” he cried, and fired. Hatteras tumbled down to the -boat-side. The blacks down river were roused by the shot. Walker shouted -to them to stay where they were, and as soon as their camp was quiet he -stepped ashore. He filled up the whisky jar with water, tied it to -Hatteras’ feet, shook his hand, and pushed the body into the river. The -next morning he started back to Fernan Vaz.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Ransom' id='s9'>THE RANSOM</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By CUTLIFFE HYNE</p> -<p>Methuen wriggled himself into a corner of the hut, rested his shoulders -against the <i>adobe</i> wall, and made himself as comfortable as the -raw-hide thongs with which he was tied up would permit. “Well, Calvert,” -said he, “I hope you quite realise what an extremely ugly hole we’re -in?”</p> -<p>“Garcia will hang the pair of us before sunset,” I replied, “and that’s -a certainty. My only wonder is we haven’t been strung up before this.”</p> -<p>“You think a rope and a tree’s a sure thing, do you? I wish I could -comfort myself with that idea. I wouldn’t mind a simple gentlemanly dose -of hanging. But there are more things in heaven and earth, Calvert——” He -broke off and whistled drearily.</p> -<p>I moistened my dry, cracked lips, and asked him huskily what he meant.</p> -<p>“Torture, old man. That’s what we’re being saved for, I’m very much -afraid. A Peruvian guerilla is never a gentle-minded animal at the best -of times, and Garcia is noted as being the most vindictive brute to be -found between the Andes and the Pacific. Then if you’ll kindly remember -how you and I have harried him, and shot down his men, and cut off his -supplies, and made his life a torment and a thing of tremors for the -last four weeks, you’ll see he had got a big bill against us. If he’d -hated us less, he’d have had us shot at sight when we were caught; as it -is, I’m afraid he felt that a couple of bullets in hot blood wouldn’t -pay off the score.”</p> -<p>“If he thinks the matter over calmly, he’ll not very well avoid seeing -that if he wipes us out there’ll be reprisals to be looked for.”</p> -<p>“And a fat lot,” replied Methuen grimly, “he’ll care for the chance of -those. If we are put out of the way, he knows quite well that there are -no two other men in the Chilian Service who can keep him on the trot as -we have done. No, sir. We can’t scare Garcia with that yarn. You think -that because we’re alive still there’s hope. Well, I’ve sufficient faith -in my theory for this: If anyone offered me a shot through the head now, -I’d accept it, and risk the chance.”</p> -<p>“You take the gloomy view. Now the man’s face is not altogether cruel. -There’s humour in it.”</p> -<p>“Then probably he’ll show his funniness when he takes it out of us,” -Methuen retorted. “Remember that punishment in the ‘Mikado’? That had -‘something humorous’ in it. Boiling oil, if I don’t forget.”</p> -<p>Involuntarily I shuddered, and the raw-hide ropes cut deeper into my -wrists and limbs. I had no great dread of being killed in the ordinary -way, or I should not have entered the Chilian Army in the middle of a -hot war; and I was prepared to risk the ordinary woundings of action in -return for the excitements of the fight. But to be caught, and held a -helpless prisoner, and be deliberately tortured to death by every -cruelty this malignant fiend, Garcia, could devise, was a possibility I -had not counted on before. In fact, as the Peruvians had repeatedly -given out that they would offer no quarter to us English in the Chilian -Service, we had all of us naturally resolved to die fighting rather than -be taken. And, indeed, this desperate feeling paid very well, since on -two separate occasions when Methuen and myself had been cornered with -small bodies of men, and would have surrendered if we could have been -guaranteed our lives, we went at them each time so furiously that on -each occasion we broke through and escaped. But one thinks nothing of -the chances of death and maiming at those times. There is a glow within -one’s ribs which scares away all trace of fear.</p> -<p>“I suppose there’s no chance of rescue?” I said.</p> -<p>“None whatever,” said Methuen, with a little sigh. “Think it over, -Calvert. We start out from the <i>hacienda</i> with an escort of five men, -sing out our adios, and ride away to enjoy a ten days’ leave in the -mountains. The troops are left to recruit; for ten days they can drop us -out of mind. Within twelve hours of our leaving them, Garcia cleverly -ambushes us in a cañon where not three people pass in a year. The poor -beggars who form our escort are all <i>gastados</i>.”</p> -<p>“Yes, but are you sure of that?” I interrupted. “I saw them all drop off -their horses when we were fired upon, but that doesn’t prove they were -dead. Some might have been merely wounded, and when the coast cleared, -it is just possible they crawled back to our post with the news. Still, -I own it’s a small chance.”</p> -<p>“And you may divest yourself of even that thin rag of hope. Whilst you -were being slung senseless across a horse, I saw that man without the -ears go round with a <i>machete</i>, and—well, when the brute had done, there -was no doubt about the poor fellows being as dead as lumps of mud. Ah, -and talk of the devil——”</p> -<p>The earless man swung into the hut.</p> -<p>“<i>Buenas</i>, Señores,” said he mockingly. “You will have the honour now of -being tried, and I’m sure I hope you will be pleased with the result.”</p> -<p>“I suppose we shall find that out later,” said Methuen with a yawn; “but -anyway, I don’t think much of your hospitality. A cup of wine now after -that ugly ride we’ve had to-day would come in very handy, or even a nip -of <i>aguardiente</i> would be better than nothing.”</p> -<p>“I fancy it might be a waste of good liquor,” was the answer; “but you -must ask Garcia. He will see to your needs.”</p> -<p>A guard of twelve ragged fellows, armed with carbine and <i>machete</i>, had -followed the earless man into the hut, and two of them, whilst he -talked, had removed the seizings from our knees and ankles. They helped -us to our feet, and we walked with them into the dazzling sunshine -outside.</p> -<p>“I’ll trouble some of you for my hat,” said Methuen, when the glare -first blazed down on him; and then, as no one took any notice of the -request, he lurched against the earless man with a sudden swerve, and -knocked his sombrero on to the brown baked turf. “Well, I’ll have yours, -you flea-ridden <i>ladron</i>,” said he; “it’s better than nothing at all. -Pick up the foul thing, and shake it, and put it on my head.”</p> -<p>The guerilla bared his teeth like an animal, and drew a pistol. I -thought he would have shot my comrade out of hand, and by his look I -could see that Methuen expected it. Indeed, he had deliberately invited -the man to that end. But, either because the nearness of Garcia and fear -of his discipline stayed him, or through thought of a finer vengeance -which was to come, the earless man contented himself by dealing a -battery of kicks and oaths, and bidding our guards to ward us more -carefully.</p> -<p>In this way, then, we walked along a path between two fields of vines, -and passed down the straggling street of the village which the guerillas -had occupied, and brought up in a little <i>plaza</i> which faced the -white-walled chapel. In the turret a bell was tolling dolefully with -slow strokes, and as the sound came to me through the heated air, it did -not require much imagination to frame it into an omen. In the centre of -the <i>plaza</i> was a vast magnolia tree, filled with scented wax-like -flowers, and splashed with cones of coral-pink.</p> -<p>We drew up before the <i>piazza</i> of the principal house. Seated under its -shade in a split-cane rocker, Garcia awaited us, a small, meagre, dark -man, with glittering teeth, and fingers lemon-coloured from cigarette -juice.</p> -<p>He stared at us and spat; and the trial, such as it was, began.</p> -<p>I must confess that the proceedings astonished me. Animus there -certainly was; the guerillas as a whole were disposed to give us short -shrift; but their chief insisted on at least some parade of justice. The -indictment was set forward against us: We had shot, hanged, and harried, -and in fact used all the harshness of war. Had we been Chilians in the -Chilian Service, this might have been pardonable; but we were aliens -from across the sea; mere freebooters, fighting, not for a country, but -each for his own hand; and as such we were beyond the pale of military -courtesy. We had earned a punishment. Had we any word to speak why this -should not be given?</p> -<p>Garcia looked towards us expectantly, and then set himself to roll a -fresh cigarette.</p> -<p>I shrugged my shoulders. It seemed useless to say anything.</p> -<p>Methuen said: “Look here, sir! You’ve got us, there is no mistake about -that. It seems to me you’ve two courses before you, and they are these: -Either, you can kill us, more or less barbarously, in which case you -will raise a most pestilential hunt at your heels; or, you can put us up -to ransom. Now neither Calvert here, nor myself, are rich men; but if -you choose to let us go with sound skins, we’re prepared to pay ten -thousand Chilian dollars apiece for our passports. Now, does that strike -you?”</p> -<p>Garcia finished rolling his cigarette, and lit it with care. He inhaled -a deep breath of smoke.</p> -<p>“Señor,” he said (the words coming out from between his white teeth with -little puffs of vapour), “you do not appear to understand. You fight as -a soldier of fortune, and I am merely in arms as a patriot. I am no -huckster to traffic men’s lives for money, nor am I a timorous fool to -be scared into robbing a culprit of his just dues.”</p> -<p>“Very well, then,” said Methuen, “murder the pair of us.”</p> -<p>Garcia smiled unpleasantly. “You may be a very brave man,” said he, “but -you are not a judicious one. To a judge less just than myself this -insolence might have added something to your punishment; but as it is I -shall overlook what you have said, and only impose the penalty I had -determined upon before you spoke.”</p> -<p>He lifted his thin yellow fingers, and drew a fresh breath of smoke. -Then he waved the cigarette towards the magnolia tree in the centre of -the <i>plaza</i>. “You see that bough which juts out towards the chapel?”</p> -<p>“It’s made for a gallows,” said Methuen.</p> -<p>“Precisely,” said the guerilla, “and it will be used as one inside ten -minutes. I shall string one of you up by the neck, to dangle there -between heaven and earth. The other man shall have a rifle and -cartridges, and if, standing where he does now, he can cut with a bullet -the rope with which his friend is hanged, then you shall both go free.”</p> -<p>“I hear you say it,” said Methuen. “In other words you condemn one of us -to be strangled slowly without chance of reprieve. But what guarantee -have we that you will not slit the second man’s throat after you have -had your sport out of him?”</p> -<p>Garcia sprang to his feet with a stamp of passion, and the chair rolled -over backwards. “You foul adventurer!” he cried. “You paid man-killer!” -and then he broke off with a bitter “Pah!” and folded his arms, and for -a minute held silence till he got his tongue in hand again. “Señor,” he -said coldly, “my country’s wrongs may break my heart, but they can never -make me break my word. I may be a hunted guerilla, but I still remain a -gentleman.”</p> -<p>“I beg your pardon,” said Methuen.</p> -<p>“We will now,” continued Garcia icily, “find out which of you two will -play which part. Afterwards I will add another condition which may lend -more skill to what follows. I will not coerce you. Kindly choose between -yourselves which of you will hang and which will shoot.”</p> -<p>My comrade shrugged his shoulders. “I like you, Calvert, old man,” said -he, “but I’m not prepared to dance on nothing for you.”</p> -<p>“It would be simplest to toss for exit,” I said.</p> -<p>“Precisely; but, my dear fellow, I have both hands trussed up, and no -coin.”</p> -<p>“Pray let me assist you,” said Garcia. “Señor Calvert, may I trouble you -for an expression of opinion?”</p> -<p>He leant over the edge of the <i>piazza</i>, and span a dollar into the air. -I watched it with a thumping heart, and when for an instant it paused, a -dazzling splash of brightness against the red-tiled roof, I cried: -“Heads!”</p> -<p>The coin fell with a faint thud in the dust a yard from my feet.</p> -<p>“Well?” said Methuen.</p> -<p>“I congratulate you, old fellow. I swing.”</p> -<p>He frowned and made no reply. Garcia’s voice broke the silence. -“<i>Bueno</i>, Señor Methuen,” he said. “I advise you to shoot straight, or -you will not get home even now. You remember I said there was still -another condition. Well, here you are: you must cut your friend down -with a bullet before he is quite dead, or I’ll string you up beside -him.”</p> -<p>Methuen let up a short laugh. “Remember what I said about that fellow in -‘the Mikado,’ Calvert? You see where the ‘humour’ comes in? We’ve had -that coin spun for nothing. You and I must change positions.”</p> -<p>“Not at all. I take what I’ve earned.”</p> -<p>“But I say yes. It works this way: I took it that the man who was -hanging stood a delicate chance anyway, and I didn’t feel generous -enough to risk it. But now the Señor here has put in the extra clause, -the situation is changed altogether. You aren’t a brilliant shot, old -man, but you may be able to cut me down with a bullet if you remember -what you’re firing for, and shoot extra straight. But it’s a certain -thing that I couldn’t do it if I blazed away till Doomsday. The utmost I -could manage would be to fluke a pellet into your worthy self. So you -see I must wear the hemp, and you must apply your shoulder to the rifle -butt. Laugh, you fool,” he added in English. “Grin, and say something -funny, or these brutes will think we care for them.”</p> -<p>But I was incapable of further speech. I could have gibed at the -prospect of being hanged myself, but the horror of this other ordeal -turned me sick and dumb. And at what followed I looked on mutely.</p> -<p>There was a well at one side of the plaza, and the earless man went and -robbed the windlass of its rope. With clumsy landsman’s fingers he -formed a noose, took it to the great magnolia tree, and threw the loose -end over the projecting branch. The bell of the little white chapel -opposite went on tolling gravely, and they marched my friend up to his -fate over the sun-baked dust. They passed a thong round his ankles; the -earless man fitted the noose to his throat; a dozen of the guerillas -with shouts and laughter laid hold of the hauling part of the line; and -then a voice from behind fell upon my ear. Garcia was speaking to me. -With a strain I dragged my eyes away from the glare of the <i>plaza</i>, and -listened. He was smiling wickedly.</p> -<p>“——, and so your pluck has oozed away?” he was saying, as the cigarette -smoke billowed up from between the white walls of his teeth. “Well, of -course, if you do not care for the game, you can throw up your hand at -once. You’ve only to say the word, and you can be dangling on that bough -there inside a couple of minutes. It’s quite strong enough to carry more -fruit than it will bear just now. But it’s rather hard on your friend -not to try——”</p> -<p>My wits came to me again. “You dolt!” I cried; “how can I shoot with my -arms trussed up like this? If the whole thing is not a mockery, cut me -adrift and give me a rifle.”</p> -<p>He beckoned to one of his men, and the fellow came up and cut off the -lashings from my wrists and elbows; and then, with a sour smile, he -motioned to some of the others, who drew near and held their weapons at -the ready. “I dare wager, Señor Calvert,” he said, “that if you’d me for -a mark you would not score a miss. So I wish to insure that you do not -shoot in this direction.” He raised his voice, and shouted across the -baking sunlight: “Quite ready here, <i>amigos</i>. So up with the target.”</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>Now up to this point I am free to own that since our capture I had cut a -pretty poor figure. I had not whined, but at the same time I had not -seen my way to put on Methuen’s outward show of careless brazen courage. -But when I watched the guerillas tighten on the rope and sway him up -till his stretched-out feet swung a couple of hand-spans above the -ground, then my coolness returned to me, and my nerves set like icicles -in their sockets. He was sixty yards away, and at that distance, the -well-rope dwindled to the bigness of a shoemaker’s thread. Moreover, the -upper two-thirds of it was almost invisible, because it hung before a -background of shadows. But the eighteen inches above my poor friend’s -head stood out clear and distinct against the white walls of the chapel -beyond, and as it swayed to pulsing of the body beneath, it burnt itself -upon my eyesight till all the rest of the world was blotted out in a red -haze. I never knew before how thoroughly a man could concentrate -himself.</p> -<p>They handed me the rifle, loaded and cocked. It was a single-shot -Winchester, and I found out afterwards, though I did not know it then, -that either through fiendish wish to further hamper my aim, or through -pure forgetfulness, they had left the sights cocked up at three hundred -yards. But that did not matter; the elevation was a detail of minor -import; and besides, I was handling the weapon as a game shot fires, -with head up, and eyes glued on the mark, and rifle-barrel following the -eyes by instinct alone. You must remember that I had no stationary mark -to aim at. My poor comrade was writhing and swaying at the end of his -tether, and the well-rope swung hither and thither like some contorted -pendulum.</p> -<p>Once I fired, twice I fired, six times, ten times, and still the rope -remained uncut, and the bullets rattled harmlessly against the white -walls of the chapel beyond. With the eleventh shot came the tinkle of -broken glass, and the bell, after a couple of hurried nervous clangs, -ceased tolling altogether. With the thirteenth shot a shout went up from -the watching crowd. I had stranded the rope, and the body which dangled -beneath the magnolia tree began slowly to gyrate.</p> -<p>Then came a halt in the firing. I handed the Winchester back to the -fellow who was reloading, but somehow or other the exploded cartridge -had jammed in the breach. I danced and raged before him in my passion of -hurry, and the cruel brutes round yelled in ecstasies of merriment. Only -Garcia did not laugh. He re-rolled a fresh cigarette, with his thin -yellow fingers, and leisurely rocked himself in the split-cane chair. -The man could not have been more unmoved if he had been overlooking a -performance of Shakespeare.</p> -<p>At last I tore the Winchester from the hands of the fellow who was -fumbling with it, and clawed at the jammed cartridge myself, breaking my -nails and smearing the breech-lock with blood. If it had been welded -into one solid piece, it could scarcely have been firmer. But the thrill -of the moment gave my hands the strength of pincers. The brass case -moved from side to side; it began to crumple; and I drew it forth and -hurled it from me, a mere ball of shapeless, twisted metal. Then one of -the laughing brutes gave me another cartridge, and once more I -shouldered the loaded weapon.</p> -<p>The mark was easier now. The struggles of my poor friend had almost -ceased, and though the well-rope still swayed, its movements were -comparatively rhythmical, and to be counted upon. I snapped down the -sights, put the butt-plate to my shoulder, and cuddled the stock with my -cheek. Here for the first time was a chance of something steadier than a -snap-shot.</p> -<p>I pressed home the trigger as the well-rope reached one extremity of its -swing. Again a few loose ends sprang from the rope, and again the body -began slowly to gyrate. But was it Methuen I was firing to save, or was -I merely wasting shot to cut down a mass of cold dead clay?</p> -<p>I think that more agony was compressed for me into a few minutes then -than most men meet with in a lifetime. Even the onlooking guerillas were -so stirred that for the first time their gibing ceased, and two of them -of their own accord handed me cartridges. I slipped one home and closed -the breech-lock. The perspiration was running in a stream from my chin. -Again I fired. Again the well-rope was snipped, and I could see the -loosened strands ripple out as a snake unwraps itself from a branch.</p> -<p>One more shot. God in heaven, I missed! Why was I made to be a murderer -like this?</p> -<p>Garcia’s voice came to me coldly. “Your last chance, Señor. I can be -kept waiting here no longer. And I think you are wasting time. Your -friend seems to have quitted us already.”</p> -<p>Another cartridge. I sank to one knee and rested my left elbow on the -other. The plaza was hung in breathless silence. Every eye was strained -to see the outcome of the shot. The men might be inhuman in their -cruelty, but they were human enough in their curiosity.</p> -<p>The body span to one end of its swing: I held my fire. It swung back, -and the rifle muzzle followed. Like some mournful pendulum it passed -through the air, and then a glow of certainty filled me like a drink. I -knew I could not miss that time; and I fired; and the body, in a limp -and shapeless heap, fell to the ground.</p> -<p>With a cry I threw the rifle from me and raced across the sunlit dust. -Not an arm was stretched out to stop me. Only when I had reached my -friend and loosened that horrible ligature from his neck, did I hear -voices clamouring over my fate.</p> -<p>“And now this other Inglese, your excellency,” the earless man said. -“Shall we shoot him from here, or shall we string him up in the other’s -place?”</p> -<p>But the answer was not what the fellow expected. Garcia replied to him -in a shriek of passion. “You foul, slaughtering brute,” he cried, -“another offer like that and I’ll pistol you where you stand. You heard -me pass my word: do you dream that I could break it? They have had their -punishment, and if we see one another again, the meeting will be none of -my looking for. We leave this <i>puebla</i> in five minutes. See to your -duties. Go.”</p> -<p>The words came to me dully through the heated air. I was almost mad with -the thought that my friend was dead, and that the fault was mine, -<i>mine</i>, mine alone!</p> -<p>I listened for his breaths; they did not come. I felt for a heart-throb; -there was not so much as a flutter. His neck was seared by a ghastly -ring. His face was livid. And yet I would not admit even then that he -was dead. With a cry I seized his arms, and moved them first above his -head till he looked like a man about to dive, and then clapped them -against his sides, repeating this an infinite number of times, praying -that the airs I drew through his lungs might blow against some -smouldering spark of humanity, and kindle it once more into life.</p> -<p>The perspiration rolled from me; my mouth was as a sandpit; the heavy -scent of the magnolia blossoms above sickened me with its strength; the -sight departed from my eyes. I could see nothing beyond a small circle -of the hot dust around, which waved and danced in the sunlight, and the -little green lizards which came and looked at me curiously, and forgot -that I was human.</p> -<p>And then, of a sudden, my comrade gave a sob, and his chest began to -heave of itself without my laborious aid. And after that for a while I -knew very little more. The sun-baked dust danced more wildly in the -sunshine, the lizards changed to darker colours, the light went out, and -when next I came to my senses Methuen was sitting up with one hand -clutching at his throat, looking at me wildly.</p> -<p>“What has happened?” he gasped. “I thought I was dead, and Garcia had -hanged me. Garcia——No one is here. The <i>puebla</i> seems deserted. Calvert, -tell me.”</p> -<p>“They have gone,” I said. “We are alive. We will get away from here as -soon as you can walk.”</p> -<p>He rose to his feet, swaying. “I can walk now. But what about you?”</p> -<p>“I am an old man,” I said, “wearily old. In the last two hours I have -grown a hundred years. But I think I can walk also. Yes, look, I am -strong. Lean on my arm. Do you see that broken window in the chapel? -When I fired through that, the bell stopped tolling.”</p> -<p>“Let us go inside the chapel for a minute before we leave the village,” -said Methuen. “We have had a very narrow escape, old man. I—I—feel -thankful.”</p> -<p>There was a faint smell of incense inside that little white-walled -chapel. The odour of it lingers by me still.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Other Twin' id='s10'>THE OTHER TWIN</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By EDWIN PUGH</p> -<p>It was the hour of siesta. Santa Plaza lay blistering, sweltering, in -the white-hot glare of the noontide sun. The dust lay thick on the roads -and terraces, the copings and the roofs of the houses, like untrodden -snow. The sea shone like a shield of brass reflecting a brassy sky. -There was not the least sign of movement anywhere.</p> -<p>Then Franker, the Englishman, came limping along the Lido, sat down in -the shadow of the old sea-wall, and examined with grave solicitude a -swollen and blistered foot swathed in filthy, blood-stained rags.</p> -<p>This Franker had once been a well-known figure in all the ports of those -far-off southern seas. It was whispered that in the long ago he had been -a gentleman. Now he was just the sport of circumstance, a jack of all -trades, so long as they were indifferent honest; sailorman, stock-rider, -storekeeper, croupier, crimp, anything that happened along in his hour -of need. But lately he had disappeared from his old haunts, and it was -unlikely that any of his old acquaintances would have recognised in that -ragged and gaunt, unwashed and black-bearded wastrel on the beach the -spruce adventurer of former days.</p> -<p>He had the look of a hunted creature. There was fear in his eyes. Even -as he sat there nursing his aching foot, parched and hungry, haggard and -weary, his head was perpetually turning from side to side, and ever and -again he looked over his shoulder, to left and right, as if he were in -dread expectation that at any moment some enemy might creep upon him -unawares. And, indeed, he was in parlous case. For he had killed a man, -not in itself an exceptional incident of course—only in this instance -the man was one of twins, and the other twin had vowed a vendetta -against him.</p> -<p>These twins were named Bibi and Bobo, and the extraordinary likeness -between them was accentuated by their habit of always dressing alike, -talking alike, thinking alike. There were some who said that they could -distinguish one twin from the other, but these were foolish, -vainglorious men. The thing was manifestly impossible. Even Franker did -not know whether it was Bibi or Bobo he had killed.</p> -<p>It happened in a gambling den in Suranim, up country. They were playing -the childish game of boule, and some silly dispute had arisen. Franker -had lost his temper, and knocked one of the twins down. For once in a -way the other twin had not been present, or most assuredly Franker would -have been chived in the back before he could turn round. As it was, he -saw his fallen adversary rise slowly, slowly draw a red smear across his -face with the back of his hand, and then quicken on a sudden into antic -activity. There was the flash of a knife. Franker dodged. The other men -stood back to watch the fun—not to see fair play. Fair play was a jewel -of little value in the estimation of that crew. A moment Franker -hesitated, then whipped out his gun and fired point-blank at the twin. -He dropped dead. Before the smoke had cleared away or the echoes of the -report had subsided into stillness, Franker had left the gambling-house -and was running for his life into the wilderness.</p> -<p>There, for three days, he lost himself. That was his idea: to lose -himself. He wanted to be lost, utterly lost to the world. For he knew -that so long as the other twin lived his own chances of living were -reduced to the last recurring decimal. Bibi or Bobo—whichever it -was—would never rest until he had wrought vengeance on his brother’s -murderer. Though it wasn’t a murder, of course, but a duel in which each -had taken the same risk of death. If Franker had not killed Bibi or -Bobo, Bibi or Bobo would have killed him. He wished he knew which of the -twins it was he had killed. So idiotic not to know. So confusing. It -made your head ache, wondering. And in your sleep you dreamed of -horrible, two-headed monsters coming at you crabwise, with arms and legs -all round them.</p> -<p>On the third day of his sojourn in the wilderness the other twin had -very nearly caught him napping. He had sunk down exhausted in a sandy -hollow fringed with palms, and for a moment closed his eyes. And in that -moment the redness of his lowered eyelids had been suddenly clouded by a -shadow. In an instant he was on his feet, wide awake again. And there -was the figure of the other twin in the act of flinging itself upon him. -He fired an aimless shot at that black apparition, then bolted.</p> -<p>And all that day and all that night he had wound and wound an intorted -course through virgin forest, hoping thus to shake off his pursuer. And -all that day and all that night he had known that his pursuer followed -him, shadowed him, stalked him, with a merciless delight in that -persecution born of an insatiate hate.</p> -<p>Next day Franker, having doubled on his tracks, found himself on a -quayside, and had shipped as a forecastle hand on an old iron hooker -bound for the Caribs with a mixed cargo. He never knew or cared what -that mixed cargo consisted of. He was too busy sleeping, when he wasn’t -too sore from being kicked into wakefulness, to bother about trivial -details. He could have left the ship at the first of the Caribs, but an -island is a prison, and his yearning was for wide free spaces where a -man can at least get a run for his money. So he had returned on the -hooker, and had been paid off with the lurid compliments of the purser, -and was once more adrift.</p> -<p>But the story of his wanderings and adventures over the greater part of -the southern hemisphere would fill many books. Months passed, a year -passed, two years, and all the while Franker was dogged by the avenger. -Ever and again, just when he thought that he had at last shaken off that -deadly pursuit, the other twin turned up again. And gradually it was -borne in upon him that the other twin might have killed him long since -had he wished. He had had numberless opportunities, and had not taken -them. This puzzled Franker a bit, and then he hit upon the truth. There -is more joy in the hunting than in the killing. There is more cat-like -satisfaction in the slow torture of its victim than in the crunching up -of its dead bones. He began to think of the other twin as a cat-like -creature, exercising a cruelty of the mind far more subtle and devilish -than any mere crude cruelty of tooth and claw. When the avenger tired of -the sport, then he would strike. And not till then. Meanwhile, Franker -was condemned to a daily round of unremitting vigilance, ceaseless -watchfulness, unending apprehension.</p> -<p>He had been a big man, strong and fearless, with bold eyes and the voice -of a bull. Now he had become a shuffling, whimpering, trembling thing of -nerves and tears, who dared look no one in the face lest it should be -the face of his enemy. In the old days, with no other resources than his -health and vigour, bodily and mental, he had used to take chances with -an overbearing recklessness, and thrust and curse his way through the -mob of other roustabouts like unto himself, with whom he had fought for -the means of existence. And he had been—he realised that now—quite happy -then. There were times when he told himself that he would stand fast -against his pursuer, force him into the open, then turn upon him and -rend him, and so make an end of this long-drawn-out agony. But when the -moment came his wits fled, he was distraught and afraid, he could think -only of flight.</p> -<p>It was now a full fortnight since he had seen Bibi—or Bobo. But there -had been other fortnights during which he had not seen him. And always, -inevitably, he had reappeared. So would he reappear again.</p> -<p>Franker gazed out from the shadow of the old seawall across the -glittering, limitless sea, and wished that he might drown himself in its -depths. But he was not yet quite mad enough for that. Though life had -become as a nightmare to him, and death as the awakening to the cool, -calm peace of dawn; though life offered nothing but torment, and death -offered surcease of pain, he still clung to life. It was in the nature -of his being to cling to life. He was not of the stuff that gives in.</p> -<p>But if only he could rest awhile! If only he could lie still in some -sheltered place, safe from his enemy, and thus regain his old control -over his faculties, recuperate his strength!</p> -<p>At the western end of the Lido, where the coast swept in a wide curve to -the lighthouse and the harbour, there was a long white wall. And as he -remembered what that wall enclosed, what it signified, Franker had an -inspiration. His face was suddenly irradiated. He laughed aloud. What a -fool!—God in Heaven!—what a fool he had been not to think of that -before! He rose on tremulous legs and began to shamble along the beach -towards that far-off haven of refuge.</p> -<p>The prison official, in his gaudy livery of gold and scarlet and his -immense cocked hat, conducted him to the chief inspector’s office.</p> -<p>“Yes?”</p> -<p>Franker desired to be sworn. He had a crime to confess: it had troubled -his conscience for years.</p> -<p>“Yes?”</p> -<p>An affair of opium smuggling, ship’s papers forged, and customs burked. -It was a true story enough, only Franker himself had not been implicated -in it. The police had been so long on the track of that crime they had -given it up as hopeless. And now here there was the chief criminal, a -fine fat bird, dropping into the net of his own free will. The chief -inspector rubbed his dry palms together as he thought of the luscious -report he would send to the magistracy.</p> -<p>Then he committed Franker to the custody of another prison official, -less gaudy than the first, and Franker was led away to the cell.</p> -<p>This was a big, bare, barn-like place of stone, that sometimes contained -as many as twenty prisoners huddled indiscriminately together. But just -now crime was slack. Franker had the whole cell to himself.</p> -<p>As the gaoler slammed the door on him he fell on his knees with a -weeping face, and offered up thanks for this blessed refuge, this safe -harbour of retreat from his relentless enemy, this sanctuary. Here, at -last, he was free from the fear of pursuit. Here, during the year or two -of his imprisonment, he could rest and sleep, rest his mind and find his -sleep that sweet relief from the tortures of the last two years which -would gradually restore him again to health and sanity.</p> -<p>Even as he prayed he toppled down face forward and lay there quite -still, breathing softly, evenly, in peaceful slumber.</p> -<p>The light was fading, there was a red stain of sunset on the wall when -he awoke. It was a rattling and clanging of bolts and chains that had -roused him. He sat up, blinking stupidly, at first not knowing where he -was. Then, as he remembered, he shed tears of joy again, and clasped his -hands together in an access of delight.</p> -<p>The sounds drew nearer. The heavy, barred door of the prison chamber was -flung open. He saw the burly figure of a gaoler over-shadowing another -smaller figure that seemed to be precipitated from behind into the misty -vastness of the cell. It fell head-long at Franker’s feet, and lay there -stirring feebly like a wounded beetle.</p> -<p>Franker watched his writhings ... and a slow, cold horror grew upon him.</p> -<p>His fellow-prisoner raised himself on all fours, then sat up and -squatted there, cross-legged, like a Chinese bonze.</p> -<p>It was Bibi—or Bobo.</p> -<p>Franker uttered a cry.</p> -<p>“And hast thou found me, O mine enemy!”</p> -<p>The other twin had leapt to his feet. He shrank back, crouching, -snarling, spitting like a cat. The moment for the happy dispatch was -come at last. He drew his knife and fingered its keen blade lovingly, -then came mincing on tiptoe towards Franker.</p> -<p>As Franker’s hands closed round his throat he drove the blade deep into -Franker’s breast.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Narrow Way' id='s11'>THE NARROW WAY</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By R. ELLIS ROBERTS</p> -<h3>1</h3> -<p>At his confirmation he had annoyed the Bishop of London (at that time it -was Frederick Temple) by insisting on taking the additional names of -Alfonso Mary Alexander. He had surprised him by the resolute manner in -which he had answered his questions about the origin of taking names at -confirmation; and enraged him by his explanation that he desired to be -called Alexander in memory of that great Pope, the Lord Alexander VI, -who had put the whole Christian world under an obligation by his -discovery of the devotion of the Angelus. “This devotion,” the boy -murmured to the astounded Bishop, “as your Lordship no doubt knows, has -been from eternity the privilege of the Holy Angels, and was not -entrusted to men until the proximity of the horrible heresies of the -German reformation rendered the patronage of Mary necessary for the -protection of her son.” The Bishop’s chaplain had tried to prevent Frank -Lascelles’ indiscretion; but Temple’s abrupt gesture had hindered his -efforts. When Lascelles finished the Bishop gazed at him in silence for -a minute.</p> -<p>“Well, I hope you’ll live to grow out of this foolery. But you know your -rights and you shall have ’em.”</p> -<p>Temple, was, as his old foes had discovered years before, eminently -just.</p> -<p>More than twenty years had passed since that confirmation. Frank Alfonso -Mary Alexander Lascelles had gone to Oxford and to Ely, and had been -ordained to a small country parish in that diocese. After two years of -his curacy, an injudicious layman presented him to the living of S. Uny -and S. Petroc in the north of Cornwall. He had been there now for over -nineteen years. When he had come he found his church empty; now it was -full. It was full of children and boys. Occasionally a few mothers, and, -when he was sober, the village drunkard, and, when she was penitent, the -prostitute from the Church Town, came to Mass as well; but generally the -Church of S. Uny, down by the beach, was filled only by children and -boys.</p> -<p>This result Frank Lascelles had been long in attaining. The parish he -served was predominantly Methodist. He had found a congregation of -three—the publican, the ostler of the hotel, and an old maiden lady who -rang the bell, and called herself the pew-opener. Lascelles soon shocked -the respectability of the publican and the Protestantism of the ostler: -but the old lady remained faithful to him. She did not stir when he had -the three-decker cut down, and a new altar reared at the East end. She -seemed to welcome the great images, Our Lady of the Immaculate -Conception, The Sacred Heart, S. Joseph and S. Anthony which Lascelles -put up in his church. She did not care whether he said Mass in Latin or -English; and incense and holy water both left her tranquil. It was -otherwise with the village. Though the Methodists never entered the -church, except for a wedding or a funeral, they thought they had a right -to control its services and its priest. There were stormy Easter -vestries; there was a Protestant churchwarden. One horrible day the -fishermen broke into the church and took out the images and threw them -down the cliff: by next week new ones were in their places. Lascelles -was boycotted by his parishioners, except a few would-be bold spirits; -and was outlawed, in the genial English way, by his Bishop; but he stuck -at his job, went on saying offices to an empty church, and singing Mass -to his pew-opener and an occasional visitor. Then after five years or so -the change began.</p> -<p>It was not along the usual lines of such changes. Generally priests of -Lascelles’ religion are eager, masculine people who soon win over the -more turbulent elements in the parish, and put them, too, in search of -the great adventure of Christianity. But Lascelles, though he had grown -up, still remained the boy who had chosen Liguori and Alexander for his -patrons. He was obsessed with the reality of the spiritual world, of -good and evil. His pillow was wet with the tears he shed for the sins of -his parish. He was horrified at the evil of the world, and yet -constitutionally unable to defy it in any active way. He had only one -strong human affection—and that was a great love for children.</p> -<p>At first this was not reciprocated. His odd figure, his shuffling walk, -his stoop and his occasional outbursts of anger produced ridicule and -fear rather than love. Then one child somehow found how large the heart -of him was; and then another, and then another. He had won the children. -But this would have availed him little had it not been for the arrival -at S. Uny of the Rev. Paul Trengrowse. Mr. Trengrowse came to minister -to the Primitives about three years after Lascelles’ appointment to the -parish. He was young, keen, and sincere. He had not been long in the -village when the leading members of his congregation told him of the -sins of the parish priest, and horrors of the parish church. Trengrowse -prayed for light. He disliked interfering with the affairs of an alien -church; but, if half he was told was true, Lascelles must be fought. So -he paid a visit to the church, which was always open, and was duly -distressed at the idols he saw there.</p> -<p>As he was gazing at the smirking fatuity of S. Anthony, he heard a -footstep. It was Lascelles who was coming from the sacristy to the -altar. Fortunately, before he began Mass, Lascelles looked down the -church and saw “a congregation.” So he said Mass in English.</p> -<p>Now Trengrowse was no ordinary minister. He was a man of personal -holiness, and of real devotion; and that in his spirit which was sincere -and mystical recognised in the Popish-seeming priest, muttering his -Mass, a kindred soul. Lascelles’ absorption in his work, his grave, yet -joyful solemnity, his keen sense of the other world made an immense -effect on Trengrowse. The Mass proceeded, and when Trengrowse heard -“Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven,” he -felt that he had had the answer to his prayer. This man was a Christian, -however erroneous he might be in details.</p> -<p>So the next Sunday the Primitives who were hoping for a strong sermon -against the Scarlet Woman, were disagreeably surprised. “Mr. Lascelles -may be wrong. I think he is wrong, sadly wrong, in many things; but he -du love the Lord, and he du worship Him. And, brethren, no man calls -Jesus Lord save by the Holy Ghost. Let us pray for Mr. Lascelles and the -church people of S. Uny; and that we may all be led along the narrow way -to everlasting life.”</p> -<p>Had Trengrowse been a man of less character he might have failed in his -defence of Lascelles. But he was an acceptable preacher, and a man whose -plain love of his religion it was impossible to doubt. So, first with -grumbling, later with a ready acquiescence, the villagers of S. Uny -followed his lead.</p> -<p>The result was odd. Lascelles attracted the children more and more; and -his services attracted them. This worried Trengrowse not a little; but -when one of his congregation said scornfully, “Those bit games to the -church be only fit for babes,” he looked gravely at him and replied, -“Ah! Eli, but the book says ‘Unless ye become as little children.’” This -silenced Eli, but it did not silence Trengrowse’s own heart. How was it -Lascelles could do anything with children, a good deal with boys up to -fifteen or so, and nothing with men and women, and little with girls? -Lascelles’ own explanation was simple. His Bishop would not confirm his -children until they were thirteen. Lascelles presented them year after -year when they were six or seven. He preached an amazing sermon on the -three great aids to the Devil in the parish of S. Uny—and the three -heads of his sermon were: Lust, Hypocrisy and the Lord Bishop. The more -respectable of the neighbouring clergy were furious, but the Bishop, who -was a simple, humble-minded man (quite unlike to the ex-head-master who -had inducted Lascelles), refused to take any notice of the attack; but -also refused to relax his rule about the age of confirmation candidates. -The Archdeacon told Lascelles that his parish was the plague-spot of the -diocese, and Lascelles retorted that in a mass of corruption any sign of -health looks ominous and unusual. But, although he kept up a brave front -to the disapprovers, his failure with his people galled him. He would -not have minded if they had still been actively hostile. But that had -long ceased. They were now fond of their priest. They liked and shared -in his notoriety. They supported him against the officials; and when a -malicious Protestant from London attempted to stir up a revolt against -Lascelles, he was promptly put into the harbour; and Trengrowse started -a petition to the Bishop, expressing the affection “all we, whether -church people or Methodists, feel for Mr. Lascelles.”</p> -<p>Lascelles’ philosophy refused to permit him to see in his failure -evidences of his incapacity for his work. He had the proud humility of -the perfect priest. Regarding himself as a mere channel for divine -grace, he forgot that his personality was so distinctive that it -affected the way in which grace reached his people. Once an old friend -had tried to make him see this; but the task was hopeless.</p> -<p>“My dear fellow,” said Lascelles, “I don’t see what you mean. All they -want is the Gospel. And that I give them. I say Mass for them. I will -hear their confessions. I instruct them. I lead their devotions. All -beside is mere human embellishment. No doubt a more competent man would -be more pleasing to them, but he could not do more than give them the -Gospel, could he?”</p> -<p>On All Souls’ Day, 1912, Lascelles was depressed. Early that morning he -had gone up to the cemetery, and said a Requiem in the little chapel. -Then there had been the early Mass at 8.30 in church. The church had -been full. Not only were all his children there, but there were a good -many fathers and mothers: for the services on the day of the dead -appealed to a deep human instinct with a power which not even Lascelles -could spoil. The Dies Iræ, sung in Latin, had sounded oddly from a -congregation so predominantly childish: and Lascelles had preached a -short sermon on the “Significance of Death.”</p> -<p>“We exaggerate the importance of death. It is to us death matters, not -to the dead. For them it is a release, for us it is a warning. Death of -the body is only a symbol. It is death of the soul we must fear. Believe -me, it would be worth while for every one of you in this church to die, -if by dying, you could bring a soul to Jesus. God knows, I would die for -you, if that would bring you. There are those here to-day—you, -Penberthy, and you, Trevose—who have not been to Mass since you were -boys. Make a new resolution to-day, and ask the Holy Souls to help you -keep it. Come to your duties, and return to your church.”</p> -<p>Lascelles felt at the time that his appeal lacked force. He knew that -after Mass, Penberthy would say to Trevose:</p> -<p>“Bootivul service, bean’t it, Tom?”</p> -<p>“Iss—it be that. I du like it for once or twice. But for usual give me -the chapel. It be more nat’ral like.”</p> -<p>“Iss—it be. Poor Mr. Lascelles, I did think he would have a slap at us.”</p> -<p>“Iss—it be his way. My gosh! I don’t mind.”</p> -<p>So Lascelles was depressed. He sat among his books, reading a Renascence -treatise on “Death.” He thought a great deal about death. Sometimes he -feared it horribly. It seemed the great enemy of faith. It was so -disconcerting a thing, so heartless, so unregarding. At other times he -felt defiant. But never did he reach the spirit of S. Francis about -death. He was too remote from natural life and the events of animal -birth and death to understand death as an ordinary thing, something not -less usual than the sunset.</p> -<p>“It may be”—he read, “that there be more deaths than one. For it is -evident that some are so hardened in sin that the death of the body -comes long after the man has been really dead. Such men are commonly gay -and cheerful: for with the death of their soul, has died all godly fear, -all apprehension of judgment, all hope of salvation. They become but as -brutes. Wherefore the church has always held that heretics, if they be -obstinate and beyond recall, may be handed over to the secular arm for -the death of the body. It should not trouble us that they display -ordinary human virtues: for these be common in the unregenerate, and are -but devices of the devil who would persuade men that religion matters -naught. They are his children, and may be lawfully treated as such by -any godly prince. The church herself kills not: though the Lord Pope, -being a Temporal King, has the power of the sword, and may exercise the -same.”</p> -<p>Lascelles put the book down and stared at the fire. The words roused a -train of thought that almost frightened him. But he was not the man to -dismiss any idea because it was terrifying. He believed in giving the -devil his due, and always insisted that all temptations should be met -boldly, not evaded. He left his chair, and knelt at his prie-dieu, -looking at the wounds of the great Crucifix which hung above it.</p> -<p>Half an hour later he rose with a look of resolution on his face.</p> -<h3>2</h3> -<p>The first case of the plague, as the villagers insisted on calling it, -happened just before Epiphany. It attacked Penberthy, who had never been -ill before; and in four days he was dead. His disease puzzled the doctor -from the market-town, but he put it down as a curious case of infantile -paralysis. His colleague from Truro, whom he consulted after the third -case had occurred, insisted that the symptoms did not disclose anything -more definite than shock following on status lymphaticus. The most -serious thing was, however, not their incapacity to name, but their -inability to cure the mysterious disease, which was spreading in S. Uny. -Except for a general weariness, a disinclination to move, and a curious -“wambling in the innards,” there were no definite symptoms at all to go -on. After the second case they had an inquest, but it yielded no results -at all, and Dr. Marlowe began to talk of getting an expert from London.</p> -<p>It was not until February, however, that anyone came. Then by a -fortunate chance Sir Joshua Tomlinson came down to S. Ives for a -holiday. The “plague” at S. Uny had got into the London paper. There had -been ten deaths, and two women, the first to be attacked, were lying -seriously ill. Dr. Marlowe called on Sir Joshua, and the great physician -said he would come over and see the patients. Marlowe was glad that -chance had sent him a great general physician rather than a surgeon or a -specialist. Although he was willing to defy any specialist to find his -pet disease in the mysterious sickness that had killed the ten -fishermen, he was relieved that no specialist was to be given the -opportunity.</p> -<p>“You see, Lascelles,” he said to the priest, “it’s not as if we were in -the fifteenth century. We may be in theology, but I’m hanged if we are -in medicine. These men are dying like savages: but the savage makes up -his mind he has got to die, and dies through sheer hysteria. These -fellows want to live. They lust for life.”</p> -<p>“You are right, Marlowe. Their desire for life is a lust. It is scarcely -decent in a Christian to cling so to this existence. But there—it’s not -my business to judge. You know, Marlowe, I have sometimes thought this -last month that this mysterious disease is a judgment on S. Uny. It is -God’s hand held out over our village. Let us pray for those who are -dead, and those who are dying, and most of all, dear God, for those who -are not yet to die.”</p> -<p>Marlowe, though friendly with Lascelles, was more than a little afraid -of him. The vicar had worked like two men during this distress. He had -nursed the sick, he had consoled the mourners, he had said Masses and -had a service of general humiliation. Somehow he had identified himself -with his parish to a degree he had never reached before, and S. Uny was -grateful to him. But the little doctor was rather afraid. Lascelles was -strained and odd in manner. He spent too long a time in prayer, and not -long enough at meals or in bed.</p> -<p>“No, Lascelles. I don’t agree with you there. Oh! I’m a good Catholic, I -hope, and I know God could intervene; but I don’t see why He should.”</p> -<p>“No: you don’t see why. No one does, Marlowe, until He speaks, and then -they are forced to.”</p> -<p>On the Saturday Sir Joshua came over, he saw Mrs. Pentreath and Mrs. -Wichelo, and he shook his head over both of them. He asked them -questions about their diet, and about their way of living, while Marlowe -stood by, silent and impatient. Then, he said a few kindly, cheerful -words, and left them in the big room, which the vicar had had fitted up -as a hospital ward; for Marlowe thought the cases were better isolated.</p> -<p>“Well, sir, what do you think?”</p> -<p>“What sort of a man is your vicar? He seems liked.”</p> -<p>“Yes—he is. He’s an odd chap—a bit mad, I think. A very keen Catholic, -and very depressed at his failure to keep the people.”</p> -<p>“Ah! they don’t go to church.”</p> -<p>“Well they <i>do</i> now. They have done since this damned illness. He’s been -awfully good to them. And the children have always gone.”</p> -<p>“It’s a funny thing, Dr. Marlowe, that no child has been ill.”</p> -<p>“Isn’t it? That’s what I say to young Jones of Truro. He will insist on -his shock theory, following on status lymphaticus. I keep on pointing -out to him that most of the patients are men who have had shocks every -week of their lives since they were twelve. They’d have all been dead -long since.”</p> -<p>“Yes. I am sure Jones is wrong. But I don’t know what this disease is, -Dr. Marlowe. I suspect, but I don’t know.”</p> -<p>“Here is the vicar coming, Sir Joshua. Shall I introduce you?”</p> -<p>“Please do.”</p> -<p>Lascelles was walking rapidly towards them. He looked ill but eager. His -eyes were full of a fanatic pleasure, a kind of holy rapture that -appeared to make him even taller than he actually was. He acknowledged -the introduction with a bow, and would have passed on, but Sir Joshua -stopped him with a question.</p> -<p>“You have come from your sick people, Mr. Lascelles?”</p> -<p>“Yes. They are no longer sick. I was just in time to hear their -confessions and give them the viaticum.”</p> -<p>“Good God!” Sir Joshua was evidently shocked. “It’s not ten minutes -since we left them.”</p> -<p>“No? The end has always been very sudden, hasn’t it, Marlowe?”</p> -<p>“Yes. But this is quicker than usual. Do you think, Sir Joshua”—and he -lowered his voice—“a post-mortem?”</p> -<p>“No. It would be useless. At least it would be no help to me. By the -way, Marlowe, how have you entered the cause of death?”</p> -<p>“Well, sir—I’ve frankly put ‘Heart failure, cause unknown.’ There seemed -to be nothing between that and ‘Act of God.’”</p> -<p>“Ah! Marlowe, that’s what you should have put,” intervened Lascelles. -“It is the hand of God—the hand of God.” Then, with a bow to Sir Joshua, -he hurried away.</p> -<p>“So your vicar thinks it is the hand of God! He may be right. God works -through human agents. He is an interesting man, Dr. Marlowe.”</p> -<p>“Yes: he is. But this trouble has worried him frightfully. I’m rather -nervous for him. Have you got any theory, sir? You talked of suspicion.”</p> -<p>“Well, Dr. Marlowe, I’ll tell you what I think. Your patients have been -murdered.”</p> -<p>Marlowe looked at the great physician, as if he was afraid for his -sanity.</p> -<p>“No, Dr. Marlowe, I’m not mad, though I have no proof of my assertion. -All I ask is this, that I may be allowed to see the next patient within -at least half an hour of the beginning of the illness. By the way, can -they give me a bed here, do you think? Where do you put up?”</p> -<p>“Oh! I’m staying at the vicar’s. I expect he’d be charmed to have you.”</p> -<p>“No. I don’t think I will stay with Father Lascelles. I would rather -not. I’ll find a room somewhere. I think there will be another case -to-morrow night.”</p> -<h3>3</h3> -<p>That Sunday morning Lascelles preached on the “Hand of Judgment.” The -church was packed. Trengrowse had his service at nine and brought all -his congregation to the Mass at eleven. Lascelles seemed wonderfully -better. His eye was clearer, his step gayer and his whole figure more -buoyant. His tone as he gave out his text was exultant.</p> -<p>“They pierced his hands.</p> -<p>“The symbolism of the Divine Body is strangely arresting. The Jews -thought of God as an eye watching, caring for them from heaven. We -Christians watch God—here in the Tabernacle, or in the arms of Mary. His -care for us we typify by his Hand—the Hand we pierced. This last month -God has been with us very wonderfully. He is always with us in the Holy -Sacrament: but lately he has been with us in the Sacrament of Death. His -Hand of Judgment has been over, and under us; it has clasped us—and some -of us it has not let go.</p> -<p>“Our natural feeling is one of fear. We are not used to such immediate -handling as this of our God’s. We have most of us tried to apply -religion to our life, now we have to try and apply our life to religion. -God will have us think of nothing but Him, speak to none save Him, hope -for none save Him. His Hand is still with us. It will bear yet more away -from S. Uny before we learn our lesson. Let me help you to learn that -lesson right. Let us all take care that we renew our trust in God, that -we recognise His Hand, that we answer His Love.”</p> -<p>Sir Joshua had listened attentively to Lascelles’ sermon. He seemed -vaguely disappointed, and he was unwilling to discuss it with Marlowe -afterwards. There was no doubt that Lascelles’ almost fatalist attitude, -while it annoyed the doctor, had a strange welcome from the villagers. -They turned in a child-like way to the words of this man who spoke as -one who knew the ways and the meaning of the Almighty. Never had -Lascelles so much real devotion from his people as he secured during the -“plague.” It was not that they shared his feeling of complete -abandonment to the Will of God; but the fact that he had such a feeling -made their fate seem more tolerable.</p> -<p>On Sunday evening there was a new case, as Sir Joshua had expected. The -disease attacked Mrs. Bodilly, the wife of the chief grocer in S. Uny. -Marlowe was summoned immediately, but he found Sir Joshua already at the -poor woman’s bedside.</p> -<p>She was frankly terrified; in this her case differed from previous ones, -in which the sufferers, though generally resentful, had been not the -least afraid. Mrs. Bodilly had been at Mass that morning. She had got -back and prepared the dinner. At tea-time she had “felt queer,” but -after tea she was better. Then, as she was getting ready to go to the -special service of Exposition, she fell down and had to be carried up to -her room by her husband and sons.</p> -<p>She was, unlike most of the tradesmen’s wives, a nominal church woman, -but she had never been confirmed and rarely went to church. The fit of -external piety roused in her by the “plague” was frankly based on -nervous alarm. She felt that God was taking it out of S. Uny in this -way; and she was anxious to escape.</p> -<p>Her illness found her divided between anger and fear. She was angry that -her efforts to placate Divine wrath had not been more successful—she was -terrified of dying, terrified still more of death as a punishment. In -the most desolate way she sought reassurances from Marlowe and Sir -Joshua; but neither could give her any certain consolation. The disease -presented no different aspects. It indeed presented no aspect at all, -except extreme weakness, astonishing slowness of the pulse, and -irregular beating of the heart. Although Sir Joshua was there within -five minutes of the seizure, he admitted to Marlowe that he could -discover nothing of what he suspected.</p> -<p>“I’ll be frank, Dr. Marlowe, I suspected poison. I still suspect it. I -believe all these people have been poisoned in an extremely subtle way -by a man so fanatical as to be almost mad. But I can find no trace of -the poison. In this case, I will, if you will permit me, conduct a -post-mortem, but I expect I shall fail. If I do, I must take my own -line, if you wish me to help you.”</p> -<p>“Really, Sir Joshua, you talk more like a detective than a physician.”</p> -<p>“This is a detective’s business, Dr. Marlowe. I wish it were not.”</p> -<p>Before they left Lascelles arrived. He had been summoned by Mr. Bodilly, -and he came prepared to give Mrs. Bodilly the last rites. As the boy -with the light and the bell approached the stairs, Sir Joshua whispered -to Marlowe:</p> -<p>“Your vicar seems very certain of her death.”</p> -<p>Marlowe shrugged his shoulders. “We haven’t saved a case, you know.”</p> -<p>The post-mortem yielded no result. That evening Marlowe dined with Sir -Joshua at the village inn, and after dinner the great physician told him -of his suspicions. Marlowe listened at first angrily, then with an -incredulous horror.</p> -<p>“It can’t be. The man lives for his parish, I tell you. Why, he would -die for it.”</p> -<p>“Yes: I believe he would. Had I found what I looked for, he certainly -would.”</p> -<p>“But, my dear sir, there isn’t a trace of any known drug. There’s no -trace of anything.”</p> -<p>“No. I had expected to find—but never mind. I have a great deal of -experience, Dr. Marlowe, and I am convinced that your vicar has been -murdering his parishioners. And to-night I am coming to tell him so. I -will walk home with you. You may be present or not, as you please.”</p> -<h3>4</h3> -<p>Lascelles looked up a little wearily when Sir Joshua had finished -speaking.</p> -<p>“Is that all?”</p> -<p>Marlowe intervened.</p> -<p>“Look here, old man—I only came because—you’ll forgive me, Sir Joshua—I -didn’t want you to be alone under this monstrous, this fantastic -accusation of Sir Joshua’s. You’ve only got to contradict him, and we’ll -go.”</p> -<p>Lascelles looked gratefully at his friend.</p> -<p>“Thank you, Marlowe. But Sir Joshua is right in telling me his -suspicions. You have finished, Sir Joshua?”</p> -<p>“Yes. I should like your explanation if you have one, or your admission -of my charge, and your promise that this—this—plague shall cease.”</p> -<p>“You use strange words, sir, for a man who has no evidence for what he -says.”</p> -<p>“Yes,” ejaculated Marlowe, “yes, by Jove, you do——”</p> -<p>“Please, Marlowe. You will not be content with having relieved your -mind, Sir Joshua. You wish me to answer you?”</p> -<p>“I do. I require it.”</p> -<p>“You know, sir, you great doctors have one failing. It is one priests -have, too. You cannot avoid talking to me as if I were your patient—a -mental, a nervous case. You can’t help believing that your firm tone, -your almost—may I say it—discourteous manner will impress me. Well, it -doesn’t.”</p> -<p>Sir Joshua got red. Lascelles’ words too entirely diagnosed his method. -He was annoyed that he should seem so transparent to a man whom he -regarded as at least half-crazy.</p> -<p>“I beg your pardon. There is something in what you say. Men in all -professions have their—ah! tricks.”</p> -<p>“Thank you.”</p> -<p>Lascelles got up and stood by the fireplace looking down on his visitor. -In the last month he had changed. He seemed bigger and more -masculine—more as if he now had personal responsibilities; he looked -less of an official, more of a man. He spoke rather slowly.</p> -<p>“You have accused me of murder, Sir Joshua. You ask me to admit my -crime, and to promise to cease. Well, I expected your visit. I have long -been familiar with your Treatise on Renascence Toxicology; it is as -complete as any published book. And I am glad you and Marlowe came -to-night. I have my answer ready. I admit nothing, and I promise -nothing.”</p> -<p>Sir Joshua looked with a puzzled air at the priest. For a moment his -accusation seemed a monstrous thing to himself. Then his common sense -surged back.</p> -<p>“Father Lascelles, your answer does not satisfy me. I must take other -steps.”</p> -<p>“They will not lead anywhere, Sir Joshua. If you find no evidence, no -other man can. You say my poor people were poisoned. Well, find the -poison. Ah—you know you cannot. It is foolish to threaten me. But I will -tell you what I had determined to tell Marlowe to-night. First, I do not -expect there will be any more deaths from this plague for a long time.</p> -<p>“Secondly, I have a confession to make. Last All Hallows I was -depressed. The work here has not gone as it should. I had the children, -but not their parents. I thought much of Death and the Departed at that -season of all the dead—and at last I prayed to God that if nothing else -would move these people, He would send Death. Send Death mysterious and -as a judgment. Death has come, and my people have learnt their lesson. -All of those who died were reconciled to Holy Church before death. Of -those who remain nearly all have adhered to the Church. This afternoon -Mr. Trengrowse came and asked to be prepared for Confirmation——”</p> -<p>“Trengrowse, the minister——” cried Marlowe.</p> -<p>“And this evening I had notice that all who are competent intend to make -their Communion next Sunday. This parish has been won for God, Sir -Joshua, and at the cost of thirteen deaths. Isn’t it worth it?”</p> -<p>“Father Lascelles, I cannot regard you as sane. You are not only -practically admitting your crime, you are disclosing your motives.”</p> -<p>“I beg your pardon, I admit nothing. I acknowledge I prayed to God to -visit this people, if necessary, by His secret Death. That is not a -crime. Next Sunday I shall tell my people.”</p> -<p>“And have you <i>prayed</i> that the deaths shall cease?” asked Sir Joshua -ironically.</p> -<p>“I was doing so when you entered,” replied Lascelles quietly.</p> -<p>“Good God, man, your hypocrisy sickens me. You prate of God’s -intervention, and all the time you’ve been sending man after man to -death by some foul poison of your own.”</p> -<p>“Sir Joshua—do you believe God commonly works without human -intervention?”</p> -<p>“Bah! That is sophistry.”</p> -<p>“You condemn the machinery of justice, the compromise of war, our human -evasion of rope and guillotine?”</p> -<p>“Surely, Marlowe,” exclaimed Sir Joshua, “you can’t sit and listen -quietly to this damnable nonsense?”</p> -<p>Marlowe had been sitting dazed, looking at Lascelles as if he were -fascinated. He replied in a remote voice.</p> -<p>“I don’t know. I’m wondering”—he gave a nervous laugh—“wondering if -Lascelles is a saint or a devil.”</p> -<p>Lascelles went on imperturbably.</p> -<p>“You don’t answer me. You can’t. Why should you think I, an anointed -priest, am less fit to be the doorkeeper of death than Lord Justice -Ommaney? At least I use no case-law. I am the slave of no precedent. I -know my people. I know them individually. I love them as persons. And as -persons I judge them.”</p> -<p>The tall figure of the man seemed to glow. His face was lit with an -unnatural beauty as he stood looking down on the other two, and dared -them to answer him.</p> -<p>Sir Joshua rose. He had lost his somewhat pompous judicial air. He was -deeply, humanly moved; and he spoke with an anxiety far more impressive -than his previous authoritative tone.</p> -<p>“Father Lascelles, I have nothing more to say. I believe you have done a -very horrible, a very wicked thing. I have heard how you would defend -yourself if you were legally brought to book for such an offence. Your -defence has, as you are aware, no legal force. I think it has no moral -force. You are deceiving yourself strangely. One day you will have a -great loneliness of heart. You will realise how terrible a -responsibility you have taken. Without the sanction of society, without -the approval of your church, you have decided, alone, the fate of your -fellow-creatures. I am sorry for you. Good-night.”</p> -<p>The light left Lascelles’ face. He looked suddenly ill and careworn. -Then with a high, frantic gesture he flung his hand towards the -Crucifix.</p> -<p>“He, too—He, too—was made sin.”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Davy Jones’s Gift' id='s12'>DAVY JONES’S GIFT</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By JOHN MASEFIELD</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>A Tarpaulin Muster</i>, by John Masefield, by permission of -Dodd, Mead and Company.</p> -<p>“Once upon a time,” said the sailor, “the Devil and Davy Jones came to -Cardiff, to the place called Tiger Bay. They put up at Tony Adam’s, not -far from Pier Head, at the corner of Sunday Lane. And all the time they -stayed there, they used to be going to the rum-shop, where they sat at a -table, smoking their cigars, and dicing each other for different -persons’ souls. Now you must know that the Devil gets landsmen, and Davy -Jones gets sailor-folk; and they get tired of having always the same, so -then they dice each other for some of another sort.</p> -<p>“One time they were in a place in Mary Street, having some burnt brandy, -and playing red and black for the people passing. And while they were -looking out on the street and turning the cards, they saw all the people -on the sidewalk breaking their necks to get into the gutter. And they -saw all the shop-people running out and kowtowing, and all the carts -pulling up, and all the police saluting. ‘Here comes a big nob,’ said -Davy Jones. ‘Yes,’ said the Devil; ‘it’s the Bishop that’s stopping with -the Mayor.’ ‘Red or black?’ said Davy Jones, picking up a card. ‘I don’t -play for bishops,’ said the Devil. ‘I respect the cloth,’ he said. ‘Come -on, man,’ said Davy Jones. ‘I’d give an admiral to have a bishop. Come -on, now; make your game. Red or black?’ ‘Well, I say red,’ said the -Devil. ‘It’s the ace of clubs,’ said Davy Jones; ‘I win; and it’s the -first bishop ever I had in my life.’ The Devil was mighty angry at -that—at losing a bishop. ‘I’ll not play any more,’ he said; ‘I’m off -home. Some people gets too good cards for me. There was some queer -shuffling when that pack was cut, that’s my belief.’</p> -<p>“‘Ah, stay and be friends, man,’ said Davy Jones. ‘Look at what’s coming -down the street. I’ll give you that for nothing.’</p> -<p>“Now, coming down the street there was a reefer—one of those apprentice -fellows. And he was brass-bound fit to play music. He stood about six -feet, and there were bright brass buttons down his jacket, and on his -collar, and on his sleeves. His cap had a big gold badge, with a -house-flag in seven different colours in the middle of it, and a gold -chain cable of a chinstay twisted round it. He was wearing his cap on -three hairs, and he was walking on both the sidewalks and all the road. -His trousers were cut like wind-sails round his ankles. He had a fathom -of red silk tie rolling out over his chest. He’d a cigarette in a -twisted clay holder a foot and a half long. He was chewing tobacco over -his shoulders as he walked. He’d a bottle of rum-hot in one hand, a bag -of jam tarts in the other, and his pockets were full of love-letters -from every port between Rio and Callao, round by the East.</p> -<p>“‘You mean to say you’ll give me that?’ said the Devil. ‘I will,’ said -Davy Jones, ‘and a beauty he is. I never see a finer.’ ‘He is, indeed, a -beauty,’ said the Devil. ‘I take back what I said about the cards. I’m -sorry I spoke crusty. What’s the matter with some burnt brandy?’ ‘Burnt -brandy be it,’ said Davy Jones. So then they rang the bell, and ordered -a new jug and clean glasses.</p> -<p>“Now the Devil was so proud of what Davy Jones had given him, he -couldn’t keep away from him. He used to hang about the East Bute Docks, -under the red-brick clock-tower, looking at the barque the young man -worked aboard. Bill Harker his name was. He was in the West Coast -barque, the <i>Coronel</i>, loading fuel for Hilo. So at last, when the -<i>Coronel</i> was sailing, the Devil shipped himself aboard her, as one of -the crowd in the fo’c’sle, and away they went down the Channel. At first -he was very happy, for Bill Harker was in the same watch, and the two -would yarn together. And though he was wise when he shipped, Bill Harker -taught him a lot. There was a lot of things Bill Harker knew about. But -when they were off the River Plate, they got caught in a pampero, and it -blew very hard, and a big green sea began to run. The <i>Coronel</i> was a -wet ship, and for three days you could stand upon her poop, and look -forward and see nothing but a smother of foam from the break of the poop -to the jib-boom. The crew had to roost on the poop. The fo’c’sle was -flooded out. So while they were like this the flying jib worked loose. -‘The jib will be gone in a half a tick,’ said the mate. ‘Out there, one -of you, and make it fast, before it blows away.’ But the boom was -dipping under every minute, and the waist was four feet deep, and green -water came aboard all along her length. So none of the crowd would go -forward. Then Bill Harker shambled out, and away he went forward, with -the green seas smashing over him, and he lay out along the jib-boom and -made the sail fast, and jolly nearly drowned he was. ‘That’s a brave -lad, that Bill Harker,’ said the Devil. ‘Ah, come off,’ said the -sailors. ‘Them reefers, they haven’t got souls to be saved.’ It was that -that set the Devil thinking.</p> -<p>“By and by they came up with the Horn; and if it had blown off the -Plate, it now blew off the roof. Talk about wind and weather. They got -them both for shore aboard the <i>Coronel</i>. And it blew all the sails off -her, and she rolled all her masts out, and the seas made a breach of her -bulwarks, and the ice knocked a hole in her bows. So watch and watch -they pumped the old <i>Coronel</i>, and the leak gained steadily, and they -were hove to under a weather cloth, five and a half degrees to the south -of anything. And while they were like this, just about giving up hope, -the old man sent the watch below, and told them they could start -prayers. So the Devil crept on to the top of the half-deck, to look -through the scuttle, to see what the reefers were doing, and what kind -of prayers Bill Harker was putting up. And he saw them all sitting round -the table, under the lamp, with Bill Harker at the head. And each of -them had a hand of cards, and a length of knotted rope-yarn, and they -were playing able-whackets. Each man in turn put down a card, and swore -a new blasphemy, and if his swear didn’t come as he played the card, -then all the others hit him with their teasers. But they never once had -a chance to hit Bill Harker. ‘I think they were right about his soul,’ -said the Devil. And he sighed, like he was sad.</p> -<p>“Shortly after the <i>Coronel</i> went down, and all hands drowned in her, -saving only Bill Harker and the Devil. They came up out of the -smothering green seas, and saw the stars blinking in the sky, and heard -the wind howling like a pack of dogs. They managed to get aboard the -<i>Coronel’s</i> hen-house, which had come adrift, and floated. The fowls -were all drowned inside, so they lived on drowned hens. As for drink, -they had to do without for there was none. When they got thirsty they -splashed their faces with salt water; but they were so cold they didn’t -feel thirst very bad. They drifted three days and three nights, till -their skins were all cracked and salt-caked. And all the Devil thought -of was whether Bill Harker had a soul. And Bill kept telling the Devil -what a thundering big feed they would have as soon as they fetched to -port, and how good a rum-hot would be, with a lump of sugar and a bit of -lemon peel.</p> -<p>“And at last the old hen-house came bump on to Terra del Fuego, and -there were some natives cooking rabbits. So the Devil and Bill made a -raid of the whole jing bang, and ate till they were tired. Then they had -a drink out of a brook, and a warm by the fire, and a pleasant sleep. -‘Now,’ said the Devil, ‘I will see if he’s got a soul. I’ll see if he -give thanks.’ So after an hour or two Bill took a turn up and down and -came to the Devil. ‘It’s mighty dull on this forgotten continent,’ he -said. ‘Have you got a ha’penny?’ ‘No,’ said the Devil. ‘What in joy d’ye -want with a ha’penny?’ ‘I might have played you pitch and toss,’ said -Bill. ‘I give you up,’ said the Devil; ‘you’ve no more soul than the -inner part of an empty barrel.’ And with that the Devil vanished in a -flame of sulphur.</p> -<p>“Bill stretched himself, and put another shrub on the fire. He picked up -a few round shells, and began a game of knucklebones.”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Call of the Hand' id='s13'>THE CALL OF THE HAND</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em' style='font-size:1.1em;'>(<i>A Story of the Balkans</i>)</p> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By LOUIS GOLDING</p> -<h3>1</h3> -<p>No one knew what sin Nikolai Kupreloff had committed to bring on his -head so terrible a penalty. Year after year his wife and he had prayed -for a child, to their ikons in the tiny basilica in the wood, and when -his wife gave birth at last, it was neither a child nor children. She -had given birth to two little boys, perfectly made, exquisitely -proportioned, but there was a deadly thing had befallen them ... the -tiny right hand of the one was inexorably seized by the left hand of the -other.</p> -<p>The little woodcutter’s cottage of Nikolai lay deeply hidden in the -great pine woods of Lower Serbia, miles from his nearest neighbour. Yet -even in that wild country the fame of the intertwined children travelled -far, and the wise old women from those parts came to see if herbs or -chanting or any of their dark gifts might be of the least avail. They -were no more useful than a real doctor who had studied at Belgrade, was -practising at Monastir, and was stimulated to great interest by the -account of these strange children. The case defied all the arts of black -or white magic, and the interest of the episode flickered and died down.</p> -<p>So it was that Nikolai reconciled himself to the inevitable, and as the -boys grew older he would cross himself devoutly and say: “Thank God, it -might have been a thousand times worse!” They were lads of extraordinary -beauty. Peter and Ivan he called them, Ivan being the lad who held so -irrevocably the wrist of his brother within his fingers. In appearance -they were identical—the light, tough hair and the laughing blue eyes of -the Serbian Slav, sturdy, well-knit limbs, and a sterling robustness of -physique. It was only their parents and themselves who knew that between -them there was one slight but unmistakable mark of distinction—below the -knuckle of Ivan’s thumb was marked dully a little red arrow. In fact, a -stranger might not have known that this abnormal bond existed between -the two brothers as he saw them swinging along under the pines. “What a -loving little pair!” he would exclaim, as he heard them laugh and -chatter in complete harmony, and look into each other’s eyes with the -understanding born of flawless love.</p> -<p>When they were about fifteen years old their mother died, and the father -Nikolai began more and more to remain behind in his cottage attending to -the frugal needs of the little family, while Peter and Ivan, as the -years went on, grew even more skilful in the art of woodcutting; for -Peter wielding the axe in his left hand, Ivan in his right, achieved -such a fine reciprocity of movement, that Nikolai would laugh in his -great yellow beard and mutter: “Truly the ways of God are inscrutable, -for even out of their calamity has He made a great blessing!” The -passing of time only knit closer their perfect intimacy, so that they -almost did not notice when their father Nikolai sickened and died. Now -they were left to their cottage and their woodcutting and their complete -love, the whole being crowned by the splendid physique of young -foresters at twenty-one; so that life, it seemed, had nothing in store -for them but long years of undivided love and content.</p> -<p>Yet even into their seclusion rumours came of the great world beyond. -Now and again they would catch glimpses of the marvels of Salonika in -the eyes of travelled men. They would hear of a city where lovely women, -infinitely more beautiful than the queen of the tousled gypsies who -flickered from time to time along the forest paths, sang upon stages of -golden wood, in gardens full of hanging lights. They would hear of the -sea and glowing ships, and men who spoke low musical languages uttered -in countries beyond the sea.</p> -<p>So it was the brothers determined to leave their woodcutting behind them -for a season and adventure forth into the world of ships and songs and -lovely women.</p> -<h3>2</h3> -<p>To Peter and Ivan Salonika was a revelation of wonders they barely -thought actual. From a little room in the street of Johann Tschimiski -they saw the multicoloured tides of cosmopolitan humanity sweeping down -from Egnatia Street, down Venizelos Street to the Place de la Concorde. -They would walk along the quay-side past the great hotels to the Jardins -de la Tour Blanche, and were sent into an ecstasy of delight by the -<i>chic</i> little women who smiled archly at these two fair-headed lads from -the up-country, who walked along hand clasped in wrist in so naïve and -rustic a manner. Yet when they entered the Théatre des Variétés at the -White Tower it seemed to them that the very portals of heaven had opened -wide. They would return in a daze of delight to their room and recount -with an almost religious fervour the beauties and enchantments of the -show. Each little Spanish or French girl who came to do her song or -minuet had seemed to them more enchanting than the last. Never a cloud -of disagreement came between them. There was a perfect coincidence in -their tastes, and never, they felt, had their love for each other been -so sympathetic and complete as it was now.</p> -<p>The brothers had no large sum of money at their disposal. The time of -their holiday was drawing to a close. One evening they turned up at the -theatre for the last time, their nerves keyed up to a pitch of delighted -impatience, the more tense as the brothers knew that the next day would -see them on the arduous road back to their Serbian forest. Turn followed -turn with alluring consequence. Then at one stage the music ceased for -some moments and there was an atmosphere of expectance in the air. It -was then that a simple and delightful English girl came half-shyly from -the wings. There was nothing flamboyant in her appearance or her manner. -Yet at once she seemed to seize the house with the graceful and reticent -winsomeness of her song. So she sang her song through, a dainty little -ballad of old-world gardens and fragrant flowers and love unto death. -Peter felt the fingers of Ivan tighten round his wrist. He himself had -been so stirred to his depths by the gentle grace of the girl that it -was with a slight feeling of resentment he realised that Ivan had been -experiencing once again an identical emotion. As he involuntarily moved -away his arm Ivan uttered a slight cry of impatience. He turned round -and looked into Peter’s eyes and found them aflame with a light deeper -than mere appreciation. Peter was aware of his brother’s glance and -looked at Ivan in return to find his face flushed almost as if he were -half-drunk.</p> -<p>That night for the first time in their history there occurred a slight -bickering between the two. No mention of the little English actress -passed between them, but each of them determined that some day, when his -brother’s interest had died away, he should broach the subject and the -possibility of a rediscovery of the English actress at Salonika.</p> -<p>Next day they entrained for Monastir, and a few days later saw them -installed once again in their father’s cottage in the wood.</p> -<h3>3</h3> -<p>In proportion as the fortunes of the Kupreloff brothers increased, -something that had once existed between them receded further away. The -perfection of their old intimacy became a memory of the past. No longer -did the most minute physical or spiritual experience of the one become -automatically part of his brother’s consciousness. So that now for the -first time their indissoluble partnership became more and more galling.</p> -<p>There was no doubt of it. Everything dated from that last night at -Salonika, when the English girl appeared on the stage. They would still -occasionally revive something of the old fervour as they discussed from -time to time their impressions of the unforgettable holiday. Yet never a -word passed between them concerning the unconscious girl who had -captured both their hearts. At night they would lie awake, each thinking -that the other was asleep. Bitterly, definitely, they would confess to -their own deep hearts: “She is mine, she is mine; I am hers for ever.” -And yet to each their love seemed hopeless beyond recall. There was the -double sting that each of them loved the girl with an intensity reserved -hitherto for his brother; but, if possible, more fatal was the -despairing conviction that no girl could ever love the one of two -brothers to whom the other would remain physically attached till death -carried them both away. As the months passed by the friction between -them increased. They were now in a position to buy land and a little -livestock. But if Peter insisted upon keeping pigs, in the fashion of -the majority of Serbians, Ivan would insist upon cattle. If Peter felt -that he had done enough woodcutting for the day, Ivan felt that the day -was only just beginning.</p> -<p>One night in late autumn Peter lay tossing very heavily in his sleep. -Ivan lay awake, thinking, thinking for ever of the girl, his whole heart -full of rancour against the brother who must for ever prevent the -consummation of his love. Heavily, wearily, Peter heaved on the bed. -Outside the wind was howling. The dreariness of the wind seemed to enter -Peter’s heart. “My little girl,” he murmured, “my little girl! When -shall we meet, my little girl? Never, never, never!” Ivan’s forehead -contracted with hate. He was filled suddenly with a tremendous loathing -of his brother. “Never, never, never!” moaned Peter. Suddenly, obeying a -frantic impulse, Ivan pulled with all his strength away from his -brother’s wrist to which Fate had so viciously fastened him. With a -great scream of pain Peter half leapt from the bed.</p> -<p>“What’s this? What do you mean?” he shouted, his voice thick with pain -and sleep. “Nothing! Nothing! I couldn’t help it! I was dreaming!” -replied Ivan savagely, and the brothers settled down again for the -night.</p> -<p>Night after night the same thing happened. Peter would murmur for ever -in his sleep, “My little girl, when shall we meet? Never, never, never!” -Ivan would lie awake, hatred surging violently through his whole body, -till his eyes would see nothing but flames in the darkness of their -log-built room; and the sound of the branches in the forest would begin -to mutter and moan: “Have done with it, Ivan, have done with it! She is -waiting for you, waiting, always waiting. Have done with it! Have done -with him—with him—with <i>him</i>!”</p> -<p>One desolate night towards mid-winter the room was full of the miserable -sleep-cries of Peter. Outside thunder ripped among the clouds. A finger -of lightning came suddenly through the windows and pointed with a -gesture of flame towards the open breast of Peter. A sudden and terrible -thought flooded into Ivan’s soul! Whatever there was of human kindness -and brother-love seemed in one sinister moment to be washed away from -before the onset of the flood. All the branches upon all the trees -shrieked across the night. “We shall be quiet, you shall have rest. She -shall be yours. Have done with him, have done with him!”</p> -<p>A great calm settled down upon Ivan’s soul—the issue was decided, the -issue which had been hovering for so long in his subconsciousness was -decided at last. There was nothing left to do. The mere deed was the -mere snapping of a thread. With his eyes wide open, a terrible silence -laying upon his soul, he stared into the night, waiting, waiting for the -dawn.</p> -<p>Dawn came at last. The brothers washed and took food. There was a long -way to go, far off into the woods. There was almost a tenderness in -Ivan’s attitude towards Peter. What mattered now? The issue was decided; -the gods had taken the thing out of his hands. With their axes swinging -they made their way into the woods, through a day sharp with frost. At -last they arrived at the clearing where they were to continue their -tree-felling. A brazier stood waiting there, and before work started -they lit a fire in preparation for the midday meal. Then they picked up -their axes and set to. Lustily their strokes rang through the wood. -Chime rang upon chime. It was strenuous work, the work of men with -strong muscles and keen eyes.</p> -<p>The morning went by steadily. There was no hate in Ivan’s soul—only a -deadly patience. He knew the moment would come. He knew when the moment -came that he would act. For a few minutes they stopped and wiped their -foreheads. Peter opened his shirt wide and exposed his breast to Ivan. -The quick vision presented itself of Peter heaving darkly in their bed, -the sudden finger of lightning, the naked breast.</p> -<p>“Come!” said Ivan thickly, “let us begin!”</p> -<p>They both took up their positions against a tree. Peter with the axe in -his left hand struck against the tree. Ivan, quick as the lightning -which last night had shown him his way, whirled his axe round, away from -the tree, and the sharp edge went cracking through Peter’s ribs, deep -beyond the heart. A great fountain of blood spurted into the air. A -long, feeble moan left Peter’s lips. Deeper than the axe had cut, his -eyes looked sorrowfully into the soul of Ivan. His weight tottered and -Ivan felt himself following to the ground. There was not a moment to -lose. Again the axe whirled through the air. With the whole of a strong -man’s strength the axe came down upon his own wrist, and down fell the -body of Peter with the hand of his brother indissoluble in death round -his wrist, as it had been indissoluble in life.</p> -<p>The thing he had brought about was too monstrous for Ivan at that moment -to understand. It was only the little things that his ear and eye -seized—the frightened screech of a bird in a tree, the sullen shining of -the little red arrow in the thumb of his own severed hand.</p> -<p>Ivan felt the blood streaming from the stump of his forearm. He knew -that if he did not reassert complete mastery over himself he would bleed -to death. All would be vain—the call of the far girl, the murder, the -last look in Peter’s eyes. He staggered over to the brazier and plunged -his forearm for one swift instant into the embers. Then darkness -overwhelmed him and he fell backward into unutterable night.</p> -<h3>4</h3> -<p>It was easy enough to explain. Not the least suspicion attached itself -to Ivan. People came from remote cabins and farms to sympathise with the -bereaved brother. What was more likely in the world than that Ivan’s axe -should slide from a knot in the tree and come crashing against Peter, -who, even if he could see the axe coming, could not by any human means -have disengaged himself from his brother. “I always thought something -like this would happen,” people muttered wisely to each other, and shook -their heads and crossed their breasts.</p> -<p>Of course they all understood how Ivan could no longer remain in the -cottage consecrated by memories of his brother. So Ivan sold his -accumulation of timber and his land and what little stock the brothers -had bought, and it was not many weeks after his forearm was healed that -the jangling train from Monastir was bearing him through the Macedonian -hills upon his quest for the English girl at Salonika.</p> -<p>In Salonika she was nowhere to be found. Forlornly he went from -music-hall to music-hall, but she was gone. He haunted even the <i>cafés -chantants</i> along Egnatia Street, even the degenerate <i>brasseries</i> on the -Monastir Road, where the red-costumed women stood upon improvised -platforms and sang to tipsy crowds with the accompaniment of feeble -violins. But there was no trace of her in the whole city. From the -director at the White Tower he learned that perhaps she had proceeded to -Constantinople, perhaps she had returned to Athens, whence the European -artistes generally came to Salonika on their round of the greater -Levantine towns.</p> -<p>With all the fervour and idealism of a mediæval knight Ivan stepped upon -the deck of a Messageries Maritimes boat returning to Marseilles by way -of the Piræus. When the electric train from the harbour landed him at -the station in Athens a mystic conviction filled him that here in this -city, some day, the English girl would be revealed to him. Ambitiously -he first tried the great <i>Opéra</i>, but she was not there. The weeks -lengthened into months and failure followed failure, but the mysterious -foreknowledge of his race held up his weary spirits and bade him put -aside despair.</p> -<p>When at last she appeared upon the stage of one of the lesser -music-halls, it was with no great start of surprise or welcome that he -recognised her arrival. It was as if a mother or a sister had slipped -back into the place from which for some reason she had been absent. Her -features had become engraved upon every curve of his brain. She came -upon the stage and filled his life again as naturally as day fills the -place of night. Life became for him a thing of meaning and splendour. He -realised that at last Life was to begin.</p> -<p>He knew little of the half-measures and half-advances of Western -civilisation. He lost no time in appearing before the girl. After only a -few words of difficult apology, with a voice of low and subdued passion -he told her a fragment or two of his tale. It was a broken French that -he talked—the French of which his mother long ago had taught her boys -the few phrases she knew, and which his experiences in Salonika and -Athens during the last few months had greatly improved.</p> -<p>The large grey eyes of the English girl opened wide in wonder as she -listened, fascinated, to the stammering avowals of this tall stranger -from a shadowy land. Half in fright she drew back against the wall of -her wretched little dressing-room, but, even so soon she realised that -the destiny was overwhelming her which was to bring an end to her -wanderings. She consented shyly to his suggestion that she should see -him for a little while next night, and it was with a thrill of delight -and fear she saw his great figure waiting for her at the gate of the -Museum, as the purple Athenian dusk came wandering down from the -Acropolis and cast velvet glooms among the pillars of Pentelican marble.</p> -<p>For years since her mother had died and her father had become a -confirmed drunkard, it was a very lonely life that Mary Weston had led. -She had no great talent, and she had drifted from theatre to theatre -upon the Continent, for to her England was a place of no kindly -memories. Ivan Kupreloff began to mean for her what her mother had meant -before she died and her father before he had taken to drink.</p> -<p>A few months had passed only. There was no escape from Ivan. There was -nothing importunate about him, but he was irresistible. He was Life. -Proudly he realised that he had conquered her. To world’s end and Time’s -end she was his own.</p> -<p>They were married at length. Athens and all the cities she had known, -the Serbian wood and the murdered brother—these passed utterly from -their souls in the strong kiss which united them for all days.</p> -<h3>5</h3> -<p>Yet not for ever was the memory of his dead life to vanish from the -heart of Ivan. Even during the times of his most passionate love for -Mary there began to invade him moments of bitter memory and regret. -There was something which prevented the entire fusion with Mary towards -which he yearned and ached. It was something deep in his soul. It was -something which gnawed at his forearm, bit with teeth of contrition at -the place where the axe had fallen and severed the hand from the wrist.</p> -<p>He tried to put all this futility from him. He would seize Mary more -closely, look desperately into her eyes, and in the perfume of her lips -and hair seek anodyne. Between them there was a sufficient store of -money, small though it was, to allow them a few months of liberty, -undisturbed by any thought of the future. They wandered lazily about -Greece for a little time, finding in the Greek day and the immemorial -hills a perfect setting for their love.</p> -<p>And yet ever more insistently came to him the call of the hand—the hand -which had been his own and not his own, the hand which had united in so -unique an embrace his brother with himself.</p> -<p>Again at night voices tormented him. Again, when winds were about, they -called with living words: “The hand! The hand! It is calling you, -calling! Answer! He wants you! Peter!” wailed the wind. “Peter! Peter!”</p> -<p>Lines began to draw across his forehead. With anxiety Mary saw shadows -growing under his eyes, and in his eyes a hunger which grew more and -more forlorn. “What is it, love?” she would murmur. “You’ve not slept -well!”</p> -<p>“Nothing at all, love, nothing! All’s well!” he would reply, trying with -a kiss to forget the wind and the hand and the call.</p> -<p>“There’s something you’re longing for. Tell me, Ivan. Let me help you. -You must.”</p> -<p>“Nothing, Mary. I’ve got you. There’s nothing else in the world.” But -the call of the hand did not abate. “Peter!” the winds wailed, “Peter! -He wants you! Answer!”</p> -<p>The urgency of the call grew more imperious. He was sickening and -growing weak. There was a hot torpidity in the dry Greek noon which -shrivelled his veins. He would drag his coat down from his neck and lift -his head and try to breathe the deep breath he had known in his Serbian -wood. But there was no spaciousness, no great draughts of cool air in -the wind, only voices: “Peter! Peter! Peter!”</p> -<p>“We must go somewhere. We must go away,” said Mary. “We must go to -Athens and see a doctor, Ivan. I’m afraid!”</p> -<p>“Not Athens! No!” he replied with a shudder, his temples contracting as -before the hot blast from an oven. Those dry marble spaces! The dusty -pepper-trees! The sweating crowds in the shops, swallowing sweet cakes -like swine swallowing husks in a sty! Athens became a nightmare.</p> -<p>He was lying awake one night, the body of Mary curled beside him, her -hair floating vaguely on the pillow in the half-light of the moon. She -stirred in her sleep, and her little white hand unconsciously sought his -wrist and fastened tightly round it. That moment bridged the buried -time. Unescapably Mary had brought back to him the sensation of Peter -lying in the grasp of his own hand. Never before was the call of the -hand so imperious. Never so clearly did the wind exclaim, “Peter! He -wants you! Answer!”</p> -<p>An irresistible love for his murdered brother overwhelmed him. He raised -himself from his bed and lifted helplessly his lopped arm into the -whispering room. “Coming, my brother, I am coming! Wait! Peter!” he -moaned, and the wind replied: “Peter! Peter!”</p> -<p>He lay back in bed. He realised that the strongest claim in the world -upon him was the call of the hand. As for Mary—she was nothing different -from himself. For her as for him the call of the hand came -dictatorially. In each other they were one, but without the hand their -unity was uncompleted. The call of the hand must be obeyed. To-morrow -they must leave Greece behind. To-morrow to Serbia, to-morrow the -response to the hand.</p> -<p>Mary was not surprised when Ivan without warning explained that all -their plans were altered. She was used to his unaccountable whims, the -sudden mystic impulses of his Slavonic soul.</p> -<p>They packed up the few things which were all the impediment they -possessed, and next day saw them well started on their way to Monastir, -carefully skirting Athens. Arrived at Monastir, a few days elapsed -before they appeared at the remote wood where Ivan was born. The cottage -built by Ivan Kupreloff was not yet occupied. The strange character of -its former inhabitants combined with the terrible nature of Peter’s -death had succeeded in keeping it empty! They obtained permission from -its owner to occupy the cottage, and with a great sigh of content Ivan -flung open the door where he and his brother had passed so frequently in -former days.</p> -<p>In a little time Mary had made of the house such a palace of delight as -it had not been since Ivan’s mother was dead. Happily, Ivan took in -large draughts of the Serbian pineland air, filling his lungs. Happily, -with Mary beside him on the bed where he and Peter had lain entwined, -the dark drowsy nights melted into dawn. He made his reply to the call -of the hand. Only faintly, if at all, the wind or the branches whispered -“Peter! Peter!” Peter seemed to be happy at last. The severed hand -seemed at last to be tranquil round the wrist of the murdered brother. -Then the winds died away, and there was no sound of “Peter!”; only -fitfully a swaying of twigs and a rustle of pine-needles.</p> -<p>So it seemed. Till summer drooped her drowsing hair. Summer became -wrinkled and old. Summer went and the swift autumn came. The days -shortened into the rigours of winter, the days ever contracted towards -the anniversary of that red day when the axe was lifted and Peter fell. -Never a moment did it occur to Ivan that now when the fatal day was -approaching he might leave behind him his Serbian wood. He knew that, -more tightly than ever during his living days, the wrist of Peter lay -within his own hand, tight, unescapable. Mary and he lay under the thumb -of that severed hand wherefrom the red arrow glowed when the night was -dark and the woodfire threw leaping shadows over the log-walls. There -was no gainsaying the call of the hand till the end of days. Ivan knew -that never again would he leave behind his Serbian wood.</p> -<p>Came the night which was the anniversary of that dead, unburyable night -when Peter’s doom had been sealed. Again there was the rumbling of -thunder, there were evil flashes of lightning that ran among the clouds. -Never with so firm an embrace had Mary been clasped within his arms. -Nothing in the world was so strong as his love for Mary. They had -responded to the call of the hand. There was no further claim upon them. -Ivan kissed her sleeping eyes and was lulled in the music of her -breathing. A drowsiness came over him, and for a time he slid into -sleep.</p> -<p>In his sleep something tightened round him, something growing so tight -that it forced through the barriers of his sleep. Vaguely, faintly a -half-consciousness came back to him. He was not awake. He was not -asleep. He was in a borderland where the other world is not dead and -this world is half-alive. Tighter grew the thing which pressed against -his sleep. It was round his wrist, it was round the wrist where -something had once come crashing down. What was it? What was it had come -crashing down? An axe it was that had come crashing down. It was the -hand of Mary growing tighter round his wrist. No, it could not be the -hand of Mary. Mary had fallen from his arms. Mary was turned away from -him. He could see her hands pale where she had lifted them in sleep -above her head. It was not the hand of Mary growing tighter round his -wrist. But it was a hand. No doubt of that. It was a hand. With a dull -glow of flame a little red arrow gleamed like embers below the thumb of -the hand. Where had he seen that arrow? Where and when? When his hand -had fallen away from him, lopped at the wrist. It was the dead hand -which was not dead. It was his own hand. It was the hand with the red -arrow which had held Peter so tightly. It was the dead hand which was -alive, the living hand which had arisen from the dead. Tighter round his -wrist grew the pressure of the severed hand. The hand was tired of -calling. The hand had come. There was no gainsaying the hand. So tight -grew the clutch of the hand that his whole arm slowly lifted from his -side. Irresistibly the shoulder followed the rising arm. There was no -gainsaying the hand. Neither awake nor asleep, neither living nor dead, -he followed the hand, he rose from the bed where Mary lay, sleeping -sundered from him, his no more. Mary was alive. He was neither living -nor dead. The door of the room was opened wide. Closed doors were no -barrier against the hand which had arisen from the grave. Slowly, with -steady feet, with wide, filmy eyes, Ivan passed through the door. Slowly -through the outer door, slowly into the sound of thunder, into the gleam -of lightning and the voices of winds moaning unceasingly, “Peter! Peter! -He is calling you! Ivan! Peter is calling you! Follow!” and ever again -unceasingly, “Peter! Peter!”</p> -<p>Tighter than the bonds of ice or granite hills, tight only as the bond -of death, the arisen hand held the lopped wrist, drew the slow body of -Ivan through the haunted night far into the wood, far through the -talking trees, far to the place of that tree which had not been cut -down, to the place where an axe had fallen through bones and flesh, -where Peter had fallen, where Peter lay buried, not deep down; where -Peter lay buried under twigs and loose earth.</p> -<p>Tightly round the wrist of the man neither alive nor dead clutched the -resurrected hand. Nearer and nearer to the shallow grave the hand pulled -down the body of Ivan. Methodically, steadily, working with no pause, -the free hand of Ivan moved the twigs and the loose earth—methodically, -with no pause, until at last the body of Peter lay revealed; not -recognisable, dissolute beneath the change through which all men shall -pass, recognisable only to those filmy eyes of Ivan, to that questing -hungry soul of Ivan which had come to claim its own. Closer and closer -to the dead brother the severed hand drew the body of Ivan down; so -close, so close, until at last the hand clutched again and for ever that -wrist to which Fate had fastened it long years ago. Alongside of his -dead brother, quietly, with those eyes which neither saw nor did not -see, Ivan lay down full length. Gradually the severed hand, the hand -which had arisen from the dead to claim him, because the dead brother -called and the severed hand called for its own, gradually the hand -slipped from the lopped wrist; the wrist and the arm became one. The -hand of Ivan had brought Ivan to his own. Indissolubly, Peter and Ivan -lay joined together. But the death which lay cold in the heart and body -of Peter passed from the clutched wrist, passed into the hand which -clutched it, passed along the arm which had been severed once, and along -Ivan’s shoulder, until it made his eyes unseeing discs and of his heart -cold stone which could beat no more.</p> -<p>As the grey light of dawn came emptily down the Serbian woods, the two -brothers lay immortally one again, like the two babies the gods had -given Nikolai Kupreloff upon a long-vanished night.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Sentimental Mortgage' id='s14'>THE SENTIMENTAL MORTGAGE</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By ARTHUR LYNCH</p> -<p>“I can account for the man,” said Carstairs, “but what I am curious -about is the feelings of the girl. He blew out his brains in her -presence, and he did it immediately after she had told him to be gone. -Dramatic of him. He did it for love of her—a warm passion. I suppose -that that would be the deepest idea in her mind.”</p> -<p>“He was a man of his word, at any rate,” said Miss Landells, “for of all -the heroes who are eternally swearing they could die for a smile and all -the rest of it, hardly one would wet his boots unless he thought he -could gain something by it.... I dare say she had begun by despising -him, and when he blew out his brains felt some respect for him. Probably -if he were alive again, though, she would act in the same way.”</p> -<p>“I think I could put a harder case,” said the Colonel, “one where a man -sacrificed more——”</p> -<p>“Sacrificed more?”</p> -<p>“Yes; a man might easily blow out his brains in a burst of rage or -disappointment, but that proves little. Blantyre, the man of whom I was -thinking, did more, and the girl—Miss Trafford—had therefore to deal -with a more complex problem.”</p> -<p>With a warning that we might think the story gruesome, the Colonel told -it.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>To understand the circumstances it is necessary to know something of -Blantyre’s character. When I knew him first he had the rank of Captain. -I being second lieutenant and our relations not being very familiar, I -only knew him from what might be called an outsider’s point of view. I -hardly think, however, that anyone knew him much better. That will give -you a hint—he was a reserved man. Yet he had a fund of high-spirits; -also a witty manner, which was at times playful and yet sometimes -bitter.</p> -<p>He was an unusually handsome man. Above average height, slender but -well-made and active, he had regular features, dark complexion and -black, blue-black hair. It was said that he had a dash of the -“tar-brush”—Indian, you know—and this fact, trivial as it may appear, -had, I believe, a powerful influence on his life. I know as a fact, that -he became more reserved after a rather unpleasant occurrence, when an -ill-bred young spark, losing his temper in an argument, called him a -Dago.</p> -<p>Blantyre was always a serious sort of chap. He wrote for the <i>United -Service Review</i> and the <i>Engineering Magazine</i>, and other technical -journals, partly of course for the interest he took in that sort of -thing, but also because he was not well-off. That too was his reason for -taking as little part as possible in dances, picnics and the other -little flutters by which we amused ourselves. He seemed, in fact, rather -a fish out of water, and I used to wonder why he remained in the -Service; but he was not only of an energetic and resolute habit of mind, -but also intensely ambitious.</p> -<p>He had the misfortune to fall in love with the prettiest, the most -spoilt and, I believe, the most selfish, minx in England. The word -“brilliancy” was always on her lips, and she thought of nothing but -pleasure and excitement. She was then about twenty.</p> -<p>Imagine her reception of him when, carried off his feet, he proposed to -her. She laughed in his face and, I am told, asked him if he were “an -Indian Nabob”!</p> -<p>She probably only meant that the man who married her must be able to -give her the sort of life to which she was accustomed; and had not -realized—she took it all so lightly and really cared for Blantyre so -little—what the phrase might mean to him. His poverty and his supposed -origin—no words could have cut more deeply.</p> -<p>That very night, he set the wheels in motion and shortly after was -transferred to the Indian battalion. For the next seven years he put in -as much fighting on the frontiers as was humanly possible. He seemed the -veriest glutton for danger, never spared himself, and yet people said he -fought without enthusiasm or any warmth of blood. Oh, I grant you a -queer chap!</p> -<p>At first his men rather disliked him, but in time they became impressed -by his courage and dash, and they soon grew to rely on his steady, his -inexorable justice. He was never a popular man, too stiff and too -reserved, but his men would have followed him to certain death. They -called him “The Sabre Prince.”</p> -<p>After seven years Blantyre was back amongst us, but by that time he had -risen to be Colonel, and his reputation was unique. He was then about -thirty-five, still, you see, a young man, and quite naturally London -went mad over him. He became the lion that particular season.</p> -<p>But India had left her marks on him. He had returned minus his right -arm, and the once blue-black hair was grey. However, he was still as -handsome as ever and had the air of a man who has seen and dealt with -matters of importance. In other words he was distingué. Also he was -still in love with Miss Trafford.</p> -<p>Nor had time and experience and that unique reputation of his failed of -their effect on her. As often happens to a woman of her type she had -failed to bring off a match commensurate with her ambitions, and at -twenty-seven was still unmarried.</p> -<p>The news of their engagement set everybody gossipping. His infatuation -was recalled, and it was said she had refused a great alliance in order -to wait for him. The story even got into the newspapers.</p> -<p>I was not a little pleased, I can tell you, to hear that they were to be -married. She was still wonderfully pretty and, rumour said, less vain -and spoilt. It might be that she would settle down and make him a good -wife. Anyway he wanted her, he had wanted her for a long time, and he -was going to get what he wanted. Blantyre himself wrote to tell me, and -I think the next few weeks were the happiest of his life.</p> -<p>Judge then, of my surprise—sorrow, too—to learn one day, and again from -Blantyre himself that the marriage was off, that he had resigned his -commission and got an engineering job abroad.</p> -<p>Of course I hurried to see him. He was much as usual, cool, collected, -finely-tempered. In fact when I entered he looked up with a smile—and I -had always thought his smile lighting up that austere face peculiarly -winning.</p> -<p>It appeared that it was he who had broken off their engagement, and the -matter can be put in a nutshell—he had found her out. Mercenary motives, -no real affection—also, while he himself had grown and developed, she -had remained the social butterfly.</p> -<p>He told me—what I had not known—the story of his rejection seven years -previously. He had believed he was not worthy of her, and he had gone to -India to fight his way up to her standard. When he came back he had -believed her story, believed she had waited....</p> -<p>Then he had heard things. People talk, you know. I don’t know that he -believed what he was told, but what wrung him to the very vitals was -that he should have loved so deeply something that was—well, a poor -thing, unworthy.</p> -<p>Miss Trafford was in no temper to be jilted. She even went the length of -putting the case into her lawyer’s hands for breach of promise.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>“Before I leave England,” he said, “I mean as far as I can to satisfy -justice. The law, I suppose, could not get more from me than I possess, -and everything I have, I mean to give her. It was she who sent me to -India, and I will strip myself for her of everything I gained there. -Will you take my medals?” and he offered me a little mahogany, -gold-ornamented box. “Keep them as a memento. I do not want them. I—I -feel I may have won them fighting against my own people.”</p> -<p>In his words was a something of grief and even shame. I felt I was -looking at a man who regretted what could not be helped, who would -regret it for the remainder of his days.</p> -<p>“There is only now my property in Devonshire. That I have made over to -Miss Trafford. The deeds are in this box. The property is a small one -but it has now no encumbrances. I have been able to clear off -everything; except—” he said musingly—“except something she may or may -not regard as a detriment—it is a sort of Sentimental Mortgage.”</p> -<p>“A skeleton in the cupboard?” said I, thinking of some ghost story, or -creepy legend, or the like.</p> -<p>“Precisely. You have hit it. A skeleton in the cupboard.”</p> -<p>“But, but,” said I, trying to bring him back to the business side of the -matter, “this is not justice, justice to yourself.”</p> -<p>“When all is said and done,” he returned quietly, “you will recognise -that justice—inexorable justice. Money, position, even reputation are -nothing to me now.... No, I am not going to kill myself. I have accepted -a post in an enterprise which, if successful, will make a more enduring -mark, bring me greater wealth, perhaps even fame, than those frontier -exploits of mine.”</p> -<p>I was relieved to hear of his fresh interests.</p> -<p>“I am undertaking the survey of a line to open up the hinterlands of -Argentine. If that be successful, I shall hope to superintend the work. -If I do not succeed—well, at any rate I shall have made a beginning, and -my successor may find encouragement in the spirit in which I have led -the way. But I am dreaming ... I wish you to take this box containing -the deeds, and present it to her—if you will do me that last favour.”</p> -<p>I promised.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>I brought the box to her and presented it with ceremony. She was always -charming. She begged me to wait while she opened it.</p> -<p>When I spoke of the “skeleton in the cupboard” I had little guessed how -startlingly true the words must have sounded. It was her fault that -Blantyre had gone to India, and with the gift lay the rebuke, for the -skeleton grasped the deeds.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>“The skeleton, Colonel?”</p> -<p>“Yes, the skeleton of his right hand.”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Captain Sharkey' id='s15'>CAPTAIN SHARKEY</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em' style='font-size:1.1em;'>HOW THE GOVERNOR OF SAINT KITT’S CAME HOME</p> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By A. CONAN DOYLE</p> -<p>When the great wars of the Spanish Succession had been brought to an end -by the Treaty of Utrecht, the vast number of privateers which had been -fitted out by the contending parties found their occupation gone. Some -took to the more peaceful but less lucrative ways of ordinary commerce, -others were absorbed into the fishing-fleets, and a few of the more -reckless hoisted the Jolly Rodger at the mizzen and the bloody flag at -the main, declaring a private war upon their own account against the -whole human race.</p> -<p>With mixed crews, recruited from every nation, they scoured the seas, -disappearing occasionally to careen in some lonely inlet, or putting in -for a debauch at some outlying port, where they dazzled the inhabitants -by their lavishness and horrified them by their brutalities.</p> -<p>On the Coromandel Coast, at Madagascar, in the African waters, and above -all in the West Indian and American seas, the pirates were a constant -menace. With an insolent luxury they would regulate their depredations -by the comfort of the seasons, harrying New England in the summer and -dropping south again to the tropical islands in the winter.</p> -<p>They were the more to be dreaded because they had none of that -discipline and restraint which made their predecessors, the Buccaneers, -both formidable and respectable. These Ishmaels of the sea rendered an -account to no man, and treated their prisoners according to the drunken -whim of the moment. Flashes of grotesque generosity alternated with -longer stretches of inconceivable ferocity, and the skipper who fell -into their hands might find himself dismissed with his cargo, after -serving as boon companion in some hideous debauch, or might sit at his -cabin table with his own nose and his lips served up with pepper and -salt in front of him. It took a stout seaman in those days to ply his -calling in the Caribbean Gulf.</p> -<p>Such a man was Captain John Scarrow, of the ship <i>Morning Star</i>, and yet -he breathed a long sigh of relief when he heard the splash of the -falling anchor and swung at his moorings within a hundred yards of the -guns of the citadel of Basseterre. St. Kitt’s was his final port of -call, and early next morning his bowsprit would be pointed for Old -England. He had had enough of those robber-haunted seas. Ever since he -had left Maracaibo upon the Main, with his full lading of sugar and red -pepper, he had winced at every topsail which glimmered over the violet -edge of the tropical sea. He had coasted up the Windward Islands, -touching here and there, and assailed continually by stories of villainy -and outrage.</p> -<p>Captain Sharkey, of the 20-gun pirate barque <i>Happy Delivery</i>, had -passed down the coast, and had littered it with gutted vessels and with -murdered men. Dreadful anecdotes were current of his grim pleasantries -and of his inflexible ferocity. From the Bahamas to the Main his -coal-black barque, with the ambiguous name, had been freighted with -death and many things which are worse than death. So nervous was Captain -Scarrow, with his new full-rigged ship and her full and valuable lading, -that he struck out to the west as far as Bird’s Island to be out of the -usual track of commerce. And yet even in those solitary waters he had -been unable to shake off sinister traces of Captain Sharkey.</p> -<p>One morning they had raised a single skiff adrift upon the face of the -ocean. Its only occupant was a delirious seaman, who yelled hoarsely as -they hoisted him aboard, and showed a dried-up tongue like a black and -wrinkled fungus at the back of his mouth. Water and nursing soon -transformed him into the strongest and smartest sailor on the ship. He -was from Marblehead, in New England, it seemed, and was the sole -survivor of a schooner which had been scuttled by the dreadful Sharkey.</p> -<p>For a week Hiram Evanson, for that was his name, had been adrift beneath -a tropical sun. Sharkey had ordered the mangled remains of his late -captain to be thrown into the boat, “as provisions for the voyage,” but -the seaman had at once committed them to the deep, lest the temptation -should be more than he could bear. He had lived upon his own huge frame -until, at the last moment, the <i>Morning Star</i> had found him in that -madness which is the precursor of such a death. It was no bad find for -Captain Scarrow, for, with a short-handed crew, such a seaman as this -big New Englander was a prize worth having. He vowed that he was the -only man whom Captain Sharkey had ever placed under an obligation.</p> -<p>Now that they lay under the guns of Basseterre, all danger from the -pirate was at an end, and yet the thought of him lay heavily upon the -seaman’s mind as he watched the agent’s boat shooting out from the -custom-house quay.</p> -<p>“I’ll lay you a wager, Morgan,” said he to the first mate, “that the -agent will speak of Sharkey in the first hundred words that pass his -lips.”</p> -<p>“Well, captain, I’ll have you a silver dollar, and chance it,” said the -rough old Bristol man beside him.</p> -<p>The negro rowers shot the boat alongside, and the linen-clad steersman -sprang up the ladder.</p> -<p>“Welcome, Captain Scarrow!” he cried. “Have you heard about Sharkey?”</p> -<p>The captain grinned at the mate.</p> -<p>“What devilry has he been up to now?” he asked.</p> -<p>“Devilry! You’ve not heard, then! Why, we’ve got him safe under lock and -key here at Basseterre. He was tried last Wednesday, and he is to be -hanged to-morrow morning.”</p> -<p>Captain and mate gave a shout of joy, which an instant later was taken -up by the crew. Discipline was forgotten as they scrambled up through -the break of the poop to hear the news. The New Englander was in the -front of them with a radiant face turned up to heaven, for he came of -the Puritan stock.</p> -<p>“Sharkey to be hanged!” he cried. “You don’t know, Master Agent, if they -lack a hangman, do you?”</p> -<p>“Stand back!” cried the mate, whose outraged sense of discipline was -even stronger than his interest at the news. “I’ll pay that dollar, -Captain Scarrow, with the lightest heart that ever I paid a wager yet. -How came the villain to be taken?”</p> -<p>“Why, as to that, he became more than his own comrades could abide, and -they took such a horror of him that they would not have him on the ship. -So they marooned him upon the Little Mangles to the south of the -Mysteriosa Bank, and there he was found by a Portobello trader, who -brought him in. There was talk of sending him to Jamaica to be tried, -but our good little governor, Sir Charles Ewan, would not hear of it. -‘He’s my meat,’ said he, ‘and I claim the cooking of it.’ If you can -stay till to-morrow morning at ten, you’ll see the point swinging.”</p> -<p>“I wish I could,” said the captain wistfully, “but I am sadly behind -time now. I should start with the evening tide.”</p> -<p>“That you can’t do,” said the agent with decision. “The Governor is -going back with you.”</p> -<p>“The Governor!”</p> -<p>“Yes. He’s had a dispatch from Government to return without delay. The -fly-boat that brought it has gone on to Virginia. So Sir Charles has -been waiting for you, as I told him you were due before the rains.”</p> -<p>“Well, well!” cried the captain, in some perplexity, “I’m a plain -seaman, and I don’t know much of governors and baronets and their ways. -I don’t remember that I ever so much as spoke to one. But if it’s in -King George’s service, and he asks a cast in the <i>Morning Star</i> as far -as London, I’ll do what I can for him. There’s my own cabin he can have -and welcome. As to the cooking, it’s lobscouse and salmagundy six days -in the week; but he can bring his own cook aboard with him if he thinks -our galley too rough for his taste.”</p> -<p>“You need not trouble your mind, Captain Scarrow,” said the agent. “Sir -Charles is in weak health just now, only clear of a quartan ague, and it -is likely he will keep his cabin most of the voyage. Dr. Larousse said -that he would have sunk had the hanging of Sharkey not put fresh life in -him. He has a great spirit in him, though, you must not blame him if he -is somewhat short in his speech.”</p> -<p>“He may say what he likes and do what he likes so long as he does not -come athwart my hawse when I am working the ship,” said the captain. “He -is Governor of St. Kitt’s, but I am Governor of the <i>Morning Star</i>. And, -by his leave, I must weigh with the first tide, for I owe a duty to my -employer, just as he does to King George.”</p> -<p>“He can scarce be ready to-night, for he has many things to set in order -before he leaves.”</p> -<p>“The early morning tide, then.”</p> -<p>“Very good. I shall send his things aboard to-night, and he will follow -them to-morrow early if I can prevail upon him to leave St. Kitt’s -without seeing Sharkey do the rogue’s hornpipe. His own orders were -instant, so it may be that he will come at once. It is likely that Dr. -Larousse may attend him upon the journey.”</p> -<p>Left to themselves, the captain and mate made the best preparations -which they could for their illustrious passenger. The largest cabin was -turned out and adorned in his honour, and orders were given by which -barrels of fruit and some cases of wine should be brought off to vary -the plain food of an ocean-going trader. In the evening the Governor’s -baggage began to arrive—great ironbound ant-proof trunks, and official -tin packing-cases, with other strange-shaped packages, which suggested -the cocked hat or sword within. And then there came a note, with a -heraldic device upon the big red seal, to say that Sir Charles Ewan made -his compliments to Captain Scarrow, and that he hoped to be with him in -the morning as early as his duties and his infirmities would permit.</p> -<p>He was as good as his word, for the first grey of dawn had hardly begun -to deepen into pink when he was brought alongside, and climbed with some -difficulty up the ladder. The captain had heard the Governor was an -eccentric, but he was hardly prepared for the curious figure who came -limping feebly down his quarter-deck, his steps supported by a thick -bamboo cane. He wore a Ramillies wig, all twisted into little tails like -a poodle’s coat, and cut so low across the brow that the large green -glasses which covered his eyes looked as if they were hung from it. A -fierce beak of a nose, very long and very thin, cut the air in front of -him. His ague had caused him to swathe his throat and chin with a broad -linen cravat, and he wore a loose damask powdering-gown secured by a -cord round the waist. As he advanced he carried his masterful nose high -in the air, but his head turned slowly from side to side in the helpless -manner of the purblind, and he called in a high, querulous voice for the -captain.</p> -<p>“You have my things?” he asked.</p> -<p>“Yes, Sir Charles.”</p> -<p>“Have you wine aboard?”</p> -<p>“I have ordered five cases, sir”</p> -<p>“And tobacco?”</p> -<p>“There is a keg of Trinidad.”</p> -<p>“You play a hand of piquet?”</p> -<p>“Passably well, sir.”</p> -<p>“Then up anchor, and to sea!”</p> -<p>There was a fresh westerly wind, so by the time the sun was fairly -through the morning haze, the ship was hull down from the islands. The -decrepit Governor still limped the deck, with one guiding hand upon the -quarter-rail.</p> -<p>“You are on Government service now, captain,” said he. “They are -counting the days till I come to Westminster, I promise you. Have you -all that she will carry?”</p> -<p>“Every inch, Sir Charles.”</p> -<p>“Keep her so if you blow the sails out of her. I fear, Captain Scarrow, -that you will find a blind and broken man a poor companion for your -voyage.”</p> -<p>“I am honoured in enjoying your Excellency’s society,” said the captain. -“But I am sorry that your eyes should be so afflicted.”</p> -<p>“Yes, indeed. It is the cursed glare of the sun on the white streets of -Basseterre which has gone far to burn them out.”</p> -<p>“I had heard also that you had been plagued by a quartan ague.”</p> -<p>“Yes; I have had a pyrexy, which has reduced me much.”</p> -<p>“We had set aside a cabin for your surgeon.”</p> -<p>“Ah, the rascal! There was no budging him, for he has a snug business -amongst the merchants. But hark!”</p> -<p>He raised his ring-covered hand in the air. From far astern there came -the low deep thunder of cannon.</p> -<p>“It is from the island!” cried the captain in astonishment. “Can it be a -signal for us to put back?”</p> -<p>The Governor laughed.</p> -<p>“You have heard that Sharkey, the pirate, is to be hanged this morning. -I ordered the batteries to salute when the rascal was kicking his last, -so that I might know of it out at sea. There’s an end of Sharkey!”</p> -<p>“There’s an end of Sharkey!” cried the captain; and the crew took up the -cry as they gathered in little knots upon the deck and stared back at -the low, purple line of the vanishing land.</p> -<p>It was a cheering omen for their start across the Western Ocean, and the -invalid Governor found himself a popular man on board, for it was -generally understood that but for his insistence upon an immediate trial -and sentence, the villain might have played upon some more venal judge -and so escaped. At dinner that day Sir Charles gave many anecdotes of -the deceased pirate; and so affable was he, and so skilful in adapting -his conversation to men of lower degree, that captain, mate, and -Governor smoked their long pipes and drank their claret as three good -comrades should.</p> -<p>“And what figure did Sharkey cut in the dock?” asked the captain.</p> -<p>“He is a man of some presence,” said the Governor.</p> -<p>“I had always understood that he was an ugly, sneering devil,” remarked -the mate.</p> -<p>“Well, I dare say he could look ugly upon occasions,” said the Governor.</p> -<p>“I have heard a New Bedford whaleman say that he could not forget his -eyes,” said Captain Scarrow. “They were of the lightest filmy blue, with -red-rimmed lids. Was that not so, Sir Charles?”</p> -<p>“Alas, my own eyes will not permit me to know much of those of others! -But I remember now that the Adjutant-General said that he had such an -eye as you describe, and added that the jury were so foolish as to be -visibly discomposed when it was turned upon them. It is well for them -that he is dead, for he was a man who would never forget an injury, and -if he had laid hands upon any one of them he would have stuffed him with -straw and hung him for a figure-head.”</p> -<p>The idea seemed to amuse the Governor, for he broke suddenly into a -high, neighing laugh, and the two seamen laughed also, but not so -heartily, for they remembered that Sharkey was not the last pirate who -sailed the western seas, and that as grotesque a fate might come to be -their own. Another bottle was broached to drink for a pleasant voyage, -and the Governor would drink just one other on top of it, so that the -seamen were glad at last to stagger off—the one to his watch and the -other to his bunk. But when after his four hours’ spell the mate came -down again, he was amazed to see the Governor in his Ramillies wig, his -glasses, and his powdering-gown still seated sedately at the lonely -table with his reeking pipe and six black bottles by his side.</p> -<p>“I have drunk with the Governor of St. Kitt’s when he was sick,” said -he, “and God forbid that I should ever try to keep pace with him when he -is well.”</p> -<p>The voyage of the <i>Morning Star</i> was a successful one, and in about -three weeks she was at the mouth of the British Channel. From the first -day the infirm Governor had begun to recover his strength, and before -they were half-way across the Atlantic he was, save only for his eyes, -as well as any man upon the ship. Those who uphold the nourishing -qualities of wine might point to him in triumph, for never a night -passed that he did not repeat the performance of his first one. And yet -he would be out upon deck in the early morning as fresh and brisk as the -best of them, peering about with his weak eyes, and asking questions -about the sail and the rigging, for he was anxious to learn the ways of -the sea. And he made up for the deficiency of his eyes by obtaining -leave from the captain that the New England seaman—he who had been cast -away in the boat—should lead him about, and above all that he should sit -beside him when he played cards and count the number of the pips, for -unaided he could not tell the king from the knave.</p> -<p>It was natural that this Evanson should do the Governor willing service, -since the one was the victim of the vile Sharkey, and the other was his -avenger. One could see that it was a pleasure to the big American to -lend his arm to the invalid, and at night he would stand with all -respect behind his chair in the cabin and lay his great stub-nailed -fore-finger upon the card which he should play. Between them there was -little in the pockets either of Captain Scarrow or of Morgan, the first -mate, by the time they sighted the Lizard.</p> -<p>And it was not long before they found that all they had heard of the -high temper of Sir Charles Ewan fell short of the mark. At a sign of -opposition or a word of argument his chin would shoot out from his -cravat, his masterful nose would be cocked at a higher and more insolent -angle, and his bamboo cane would whistle up over his shoulder. He -cracked it once over the head of the carpenter when the man had -accidentally jostled him upon the deck. Once, too, when there was some -grumbling and talk of mutiny over the state of the provisions, he was of -opinion that they should not wait for the dogs to rise, but that they -should march forward and set upon them until they had trounced the -devilment out of them. “Give me a knife and a bucket!” he cried with an -oath, and could hardly be withheld from setting forth alone to deal with -the spokesman of the seamen.</p> -<p>Captain Scarrow had to remind him that though he might be only -answerable to himself at St. Kitt’s, killing became murder upon the high -seas. In politics he was, as became his official position, a stout prop -of the House of Hanover, and he swore in his cups that he had never met -a Jacobite without pistolling him where he stood. Yet for all his -vapouring and his violence he was so good a companion, with such a -stream of strange anecdote and reminiscence, that Scarrow and Morgan had -never known a voyage pass so pleasantly.</p> -<p>And then at length came the last day, when, after passing the island, -they had struck land again at the high white cliffs at Beachy Head. As -evening fell the ship lay rolling in an oily calm, a league off from -Winchelsea, with the long dark snout of Dungeness jutting out in front -of her. Next morning they would pick up their pilot at the Foreland, and -Sir Charles might meet the king’s ministers at Westminster before the -evening. The boatswain had the watch, and the three friends were met for -a last turn of cards in the cabin, the faithful American still serving -as eyes to the Governor. There was a good stake upon the table, for the -sailors had tried on this last night to win their losses back from their -passenger. Suddenly he threw all his cards down, and swept all the money -into his long-flapped silken waistcoat.</p> -<p>“The game’s mine!” said he.</p> -<p>“Heh, Sir Charles, not so fast!” cried Captain Scarrow; “you have not -played out the hand, and we are not the losers.”</p> -<p>“Sink you for a liar!” said the Governor. “I tell you that I <i>have</i> -played out the hand, and that you <i>are</i> a loser.” He whipped off his wig -and his glasses as he spoke, and there was a high, bald forehead, and a -pair of shifty blue eyes with the red rims of a bull terrier.</p> -<p>“Good God!” cried the mate. “It’s Sharkey!”</p> -<p>The two sailors sprang from their seats, but the big American castaway -had put his huge back against the cabin door, and he held a pistol in -each of his hands. The passenger had also laid a pistol upon the -scattered cards in front of him, and he burst into his high, neighing -laugh.</p> -<p>“Captain Sharkey is the name, gentlemen,” said he, “and this is Roaring -Ned Galloway, the quartermaster of the <i>Happy Delivery</i>. We made it hot, -and so they marooned us: me on a dry Tortuga cay, and him in an oarless -boat. You dogs—you poor, fond, water-hearted dogs—we hold you at the end -of our pistols!”</p> -<p>“You may shoot, or you may not!” cried Scarrow, striking his hand upon -the breast of his frieze jacket. “If it’s my last breath, Sharkey, I -tell you that you are a bloody rogue and miscreant, with a halter and -hell-fire in store for you!”</p> -<p>“There’s a man of spirit, and one of my own kidney, and he’s going to -make a pretty death of it!” cried Sharkey. “There’s no one aft save the -man at the wheel, so you may keep your breath, for you’ll need it soon. -Is the dinghy astern, Ned?”</p> -<p>“Ay, ay, captain!”</p> -<p>“And the other boats scuttled?”</p> -<p>“I bored them all in three places.”</p> -<p>“Then we shall have to leave you, Captain Scarrow. You look as if you -hadn’t quite got your bearings yet. Is there anything you’d like to ask -me?”</p> -<p>“I believe you’re the devil himself!” cried the captain. “Where is the -Governor of St. Kitt’s?”</p> -<p>“When last I saw him his Excellency was in bed with his throat cut. When -I broke prison I learnt from my friends—for Captain Sharkey has those -who love him in every port—that the Governor was starting for Europe -under a master who had never seen him. I climbed his verandah and I paid -him the little debt that I owed him. Then I came aboard you with such of -his things as I had need of, and a pair of glasses to hide these -tell-tale eyes of mine, and I have ruffled it as a Governor should. Now, -Ned, you can get to work upon them.”</p> -<p>“Help! Help! Watch ahoy!” yelled the mate; but the butt of the pirate’s -pistol crashed down on his head, and he dropped like a pithed ox. -Scarrow rushed for the door, but the sentinel clapped his hand over his -mouth, and threw his other arm round his waist.</p> -<p>“No use, Master Scarrow,” said Sharkey. “Let us see you go down on your -knees and beg for your life.”</p> -<p>“I’ll see you—” cried Scarrow, shaking his mouth clear.</p> -<p>“Twist his arm round, Ned. Now will you?”</p> -<p>“No; not if you twist it off.”</p> -<p>“Put an inch of your knife into him.”</p> -<p>“You may put six inches, and then I won’t.”</p> -<p>“Sink me, but I like his spirit!” cried Sharkey. “Put your knife in your -pocket, Ned. You’ve saved your skin, Scarrow, and it’s a pity so stout a -man should not take to the only trade where a pretty fellow can pick up -a living. You must be born for no common death, Scarrow, since you have -lain at my mercy and lived to tell the story. Tie him up, Ned.”</p> -<p>“To the stove, captain?”</p> -<p>“Tut, tut! there’s a fire in the stove. None of your rover tricks, Ned -Galloway, unless they are called for, or I’ll let you know which one of -us two is captain and which is quartermaster. Make him fast to the -table.”</p> -<p>“Nay, I thought you meant to roast him!” said the quartermaster. “You -surely do not mean to let him go?”</p> -<p>“If you and I were marooned on a Bahama cay, Ned Galloway, it is still -for me to command and for you to obey. Sink you for a villain, do you -dare to question my orders?”</p> -<p>“Nay, nay, Captain Sharkey, not so hot, sir!” said the quartermaster, -and, lifting Scarrow like a child, he laid him on the table. With the -quick dexterity of a seaman, he tied his spreadeagled hands and feet -with a rope which was passed underneath, and gagged him securely with -the long cravat which used to adorn the chin of the Governor of St. -Kitt’s.</p> -<p>“Now, Captain Scarrow, we must take our leave of you,” said the pirate. -“If I had half a dozen of my brisk boys at my heels I should have had -your cargo and your ship, but Roaring Ned could not find a foremast hand -with the spirit of a mouse. I see there are some small craft about, and -we shall get one of them. When Captain Sharkey has a boat he can get a -smack, when he has a smack he can get a brig, when he has a brig he can -get a barque, and when he has a barque he’ll soon have a full-rigged -ship of his own—so make haste into London town, or I may be coming back, -after all, for the <i>Morning Star</i>.”</p> -<p>Captain Scarrow heard the key turn in the lock as they left the cabin. -Then, as he strained at his bonds, he heard their footsteps pass up the -companion and along the quarter-deck to where the dinghy hung in the -stern. Then, still struggling and writhing, he heard the creak of the -falls and the splash of the boat in the water. In a mad fury he tore and -dragged at his ropes, until at last, with flayed wrists and ankles, he -rolled from the table, sprang over the dead mate, kicked his way through -the closed door, and rushed hatless on to the deck.</p> -<p>“Ahoy! Peterson, Armitage, Wilson!” he screamed. “Cutlasses and pistols! -Clear away the long-boat! Clear away the gig! Sharkey, the pirate, is in -yonder dinghy. Whistle up the larboard watch, bo’sun, and tumble into -the boats all hands.”</p> -<p>Down splashed the long-boat and down splashed the gig, but in an instant -the coxswains and crews were swarming up the falls on to the deck once -more.</p> -<p>“The boats are scuttled!” they cried. “They are leaking like a sieve.”</p> -<p>The captain gave a bitter curse. He had been beaten and outwitted at -every point. Above was a cloudless, starlit sky, with neither wind nor -the promise of it. The sails flapped idly in the moonlight. Far away lay -a fishing-smack, with the men clustering over their net.</p> -<p>Close to them was the little dinghy, dipping and lifting over the -shining swell.</p> -<p>“They are dead men!” cried the captain. “A shout all together, boys, to -warn them of their danger.”</p> -<p>But it was too late.</p> -<p>At that very moment the dinghy shot into the shadow of the fishing-boat. -There were two rapid pistol-shots, a scream, and then another -pistol-shot, followed by silence. The clustering fishermen had -disappeared. And then, suddenly, as the first puffs of a land-breeze -came out from the Sussex shore, the boom swung out, the mainsail filled, -and the little craft crept out with her nose to the Atlantic.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Violence' id='s16'>VIOLENCE</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>Ten Minute Stories</i>, by Algernon Blackwood, by permission of -E. P. Dutton and Company.</p> -<p>“But what seems so odd to me, so horribly pathetic, is that such people -don’t resist,” said Leidall, suddenly entering the conversation. The -intensity of his tone startled everybody; it was so passionate, yet with -a beseeching touch that made the women feel uncomfortable a little. “As -a rule, I’m told, they submit willingly, almost as though——”</p> -<p>He hesitated, grew confused, and dropped his glance to the floor; and a -smartly-dressed woman, eager to be heard, seized the opening. “Oh, come -now,” she laughed; “one always hears of a man being <i>put</i> into a strait -waistcoat. I’m sure he doesn’t slip it on as if he were going to a -dance!” And she looked flippantly at Leidall, whose casual manners she -resented. “People are put under restraint. It’s not in human nature to -accept it—healthy human nature, that is?” But for some reason no one -took her question up. “That is so, I believe, yes,” a polite voice -murmured, while the group at tea in the Dover Street Club turned with -one accord to Leidall as to one whose interesting sentence still -remained unfinished. He had hardly spoken before, and a silent man is -ever credited with wisdom.</p> -<p>“As though—you were just saying, Mr. Leidall?” a quiet little man in a -dark corner helped him.</p> -<p>“As though, I meant, a man in that condition of mind is not insane all -through,” Leidall continued stammeringly; “but that some wise portion of -him watches the proceeding with gratitude, and welcomes the protection -against himself. It seems awfully pathetic. Still”—again hesitating and -fumbling in his speech—“er—it seems queer to me that he should yield -quietly to enforced restraint—the waistcoat, handcuffs, and the rest.” -He looked round hurriedly, half suspiciously, at the faces in the -circle, then dropped his eyes again to the floor. He sighed, leaning -back in his chair. “I cannot understand it,” he added, as no one spoke, -but in a very low voice, and almost to himself. “One would expect them -to struggle furiously.”</p> -<p>Someone had mentioned that remarkable book, <i>The Mind that Found -Itself</i>, and the conversation had slipped into this serious vein. The -women did not like it. What kept it alive was the fact that the silent -Leidall, with his handsome, melancholy face, had suddenly wakened into -speech, and that the little man opposite to him, half invisible in his -dark corner, was assistant to one of London’s great hypnotic doctors, -who could, an he would, tell interesting and terrible things. No one -cared to ask the direct question, but all hoped for revelations, -possibly about people they actually knew. It was a very ordinary -tea-party indeed. And this little man now spoke, though hardly in the -desired vein. He addressed his remarks to Leidall across the -disappointed lady.</p> -<p>“I think, probably, your explanation is the true one,” he said gently, -“for madness in its commoner forms is merely want of proportion; the -mind gets out of right and proper relations with its environment. The -majority of madmen are mad on one thing only, while the rest of them is -as sane as myself—or you.”</p> -<p>The words fell into the silence. Leidall bowed his agreement, saying no -actual word. The ladies fidgeted. Someone made a jocular remark to the -effect that most of the world was mad anyhow, and the conversation -shifted with relief into a lighter vein—the scandal in the family of a -politician. Everybody talked at once. Cigarettes were lit. The corner -soon became excited and even uproarious. The tea-party was a great -success, and the offended lady, no longer ignored, led all the -skirmishes—towards herself. She was in her element. Only Leidall and the -little invisible man in the corner took small part in it; and presently, -seizing the opportunity when some new arrivals joined the group, Leidall -rose to say his adieux, and slipped away, his departure scarcely -noticed. Dr. Hancock followed him a minute later. The two men met in the -hall; Leidall already had his hat and coat on. “I’m going West, Mr. -Leidall. If that’s your way too, and you feel inclined for the walk, we -might go together.” Leidall turned with a start. His glance took in the -other with avidity—a keenly-searching, hungry glance. He hesitated for -an imperceptible moment, then made a movement towards him, half -inviting, while a curious shadow dropped across his face and vanished. -It was both pathetic and terrible. The lips trembled. He seemed to say, -“God bless you; <i>do</i> come with me!” But no words were audible.</p> -<p>“It’s a pleasant evening for a walk,” added Dr. Hancock gently; “clean -and dry under foot for a change. I’ll get my hat and join you in a -second.” And there was a hint, the merest flavour, of authority in his -voice.</p> -<p>That touch of authority was his mistake. Instantly Leidall’s hesitation -passed. “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly, “but I’m afraid I must take a -taxi. I have an appointment at the Club, and I’m late already.” “Oh, I -see,” the other replied, with a kindly smile; “then I mustn’t keep you. -But if you ever have a free evening, won’t you look me up, or come and -dine? You’ll find my telephone number in the book. I should like to talk -with you about—those things we mentioned at tea.” Leidall thanked him -politely and went out. The memory of the little man’s kindly sympathy -and understanding eyes went with him.</p> -<p>“Who was that man?” someone asked, the moment Leidall had left the -tea-table. “Surely he’s not the Leidall who wrote that awful book some -years ago?”</p> -<p>“Yes—the <i>Gulf of Darkness</i>. Did you read it?”</p> -<p>They discussed it and its author for five minutes, deciding by a large -majority that it was the book of a madman. Silent, rude men like that -always had a screw loose somewhere, they agreed. Silence was invariably -morbid.</p> -<p>“And did you notice Dr. Hancock? He never took his eyes off him. That’s -why he followed him out like that. I wonder if <i>he</i> thought anything!”</p> -<p>“I know Hancock well,” said the lady of the wounded vanity. “I’ll ask -him and find out.” They chattered on, somebody mentioned a <i>risqué</i> -play, the talk switched into other fields, and in due course the -tea-party came to an end.</p> -<p>And Leidall, meanwhile, made his way towards the Park on foot, for he -had not taken a taxi after all. The suggestion of the other man, -perhaps, had worked upon him. He was very open to suggestion. With hands -deep in his overcoat pockets, and head sunk forward between his -shoulders, he walked briskly, entering the Park at one of the smaller -gates. He made his way across the wet turf, avoiding the paths and -people. The February sky was shining in the west; beautiful clouds -floated over the houses; they looked like the shore-line of some radiant -strand his childhood once had known. He sighed; thought dived and -searched within; self-analysis, that old, implacable demon, lifted its -voice; introspection took the reins again as usual. There seemed a -strain upon the mind he could not dispel. Thought circled poignantly. He -knew it was unhealthy, morbid, a sign of those many years of difficulty -and stress that had marked him so deeply, but for the life of him he -could not escape from the hideous spell that held him. The same old -thoughts bored their way into his mind like burning wires, tracing the -same unanswerable questions. From this torture, waking or sleeping, -there was no escape. Had a companion been with him it might have been -different. If, for instance, Dr. Hancock——</p> -<p>He was angry with himself for having refused—furious; it was that vile, -false pride his long loneliness had fostered. The man was sympathetic to -him, friendly, marvellously understanding; he could have talked freely -with him, and found relief. His intuition had picked out the little -doctor as a man in ten thousand. Why had he so curtly declined his -gentle invitation? Dr. Hancock <i>knew</i>; he guessed his awful secret. But -how? In what had he betrayed himself?</p> -<p>The weary self-questioning began again, till he sighed and groaned from -sheer exhaustion. He <i>must</i> find people, companionship, someone to talk -to. The Club—it crossed his tortured mind for a second—was impossible; -there was a conspiracy among the members against him. He had left his -usual haunts everywhere for the same reason—his restaurants where he had -his lonely meals; his music-hall, where he tried sometimes to forget -himself; his favourite walks, where the very policeman knew and eyed -him. And, coming to the bridge across the Serpentine just then, he -paused and leaned over the edge, watching a bubble rise to the surface.</p> -<p>“I suppose there <i>are</i> fish in the Serpentine?” he said to a man a few -feet away.</p> -<p>They talked a moment—the other was evidently a clerk on his way home, -and then the stranger edged off and continued his walk, looking back -once or twice at the sad-faced man who had addressed him. “It’s -ridiculous, that with all our science we can’t live under water as the -fish do,” reflected Leidall, and moved on round the other bank of the -water, where he watched a flight of duck whirl down from the darkening -air and settle with a long, mournful splash beside the bushy island. “Or -that, for all our pride of mechanism in a mechanical age, we cannot -really fly.” But these attempts to escape from self were never very -successful. Another part of him looked on and mocked. He returned ever -to the endless introspection of self-analysis, and in the deepest moment -of it—ran into a big, motionless figure that blocked his way. It was the -Park policeman, the one who had always eyed him. He sheered off suddenly -towards the trees, while the man, recognising him, touched his cap -respectfully. “It’s a pleasant evening, sir; turned quite mild again.” -Leidall mumbled some reply or other, and hurried on to hide himself -among the shadows of the trees. The policeman stood and watched him, -till the darkness swallowed him. “He knows too!” groaned the wretched -man. And every bench was occupied; every face turned to watch him; there -were even figures behind the trees. He dared not go into the street, for -the very taxi-drivers were against him. If he gave an address, he would -not be driven to it; the man would <i>know</i>, and take him elsewhere. And -something in his heart, sick with anguish, weary with the endless -battle, suddenly yielded.</p> -<p>“There <i>are</i> fish in the Serpentine,” he remembered the stranger had -said. “And,” he added to himself, with a wave of delicious comfort, -“they lead secret, hidden lives that no one can disturb.” His mind -cleared surprisingly. In the water he could find peace and rest and -healing. Good Lord! How easy it all was! Yet he had never thought of it -before. He turned sharply to retrace his steps, but in that very second -the clouds descended upon his thought again, his mind darkened, he -hesitated. Could he get out again when he had had enough? Would he rise -to the surface? A battle began over these questions. He ran quickly, -then stood still again to think the matter out. Darkness shrouded him. -He heard the wind rush laughing through the trees. The picture of the -whirring duck flashed back a moment, and he decided that the best way -was by air, and not by water. He would fly into the place of rest, not -sink or merely float; and he remembered the view from his bedroom -window, high over old smoky London town, with a drop of eighty feet on -to the pavements. Yes, that was the best way. He waited a moment, trying -to think it all out clearly, but one moment the fish had it, and the -next the birds. It was really impossible to decide. Was there no one who -could help him, no one in all this enormous town who was sufficiently on -his side to advise him on the point? Some clear-headed, experienced, -kindly man?</p> -<p>And the face of Dr. Hancock flashed before his vision. He saw the gentle -eyes and sympathetic smile, remembered the soothing voice and the offer -of companionship he had refused. Of course, there was one serious -drawback: Hancock <i>knew</i>. But he was far too tactful, too sweet and good -a man to let that influence his judgment, or to betray in any way at all -that he did know.</p> -<p>Leidall found it in him to decide. Facing the entire hostile world, he -hailed a taxi from the nearest gate upon the street, looked up the -address in a chemist’s telephone book, and reached the door in a -condition of delight and relief. Yes, Dr. Hancock was at home. Leidall -sent his name in. A few minutes later the two men were chatting -pleasantly together, almost like old friends, so keen was the little -man’s intuitive sympathy and tact. Only Hancock, patient listener though -he proved to be, was uncommonly full of words. Leidall explained the -matter very clearly. “Now, what is your decision, Dr. Hancock? Is it to -be the way of the fish or the way of the duck?” And, while Hancock began -his answer with slow, well-chosen words, a new idea, better than either, -leaped with a flash into his listener’s mind. It was an inspiration. For -where could he find a better hiding-place from all his troubles than -Hancock himself? The man was kindly; he surely would not object. Leidall -this time would not hesitate a second. He was tall and broad; Hancock -was small; yet he was sure there would be room. He sprang upon him like -a wild animal. He felt the warm, thin throat yield and bend between his -great hands ... then darkness, peace and rest, a nothingness that surely -was the oblivion he had so long prayed for. He had accomplished his -desire. He had secreted himself forever from persecution—inside the -kindliest little man he had ever met—inside Hancock....</p> -<p>He opened his eyes and looked about him into a room he did not know. The -walls were soft and dimly coloured. It was very silent. Cushions were -everywhere. Peaceful it was, and out of the world. Overhead was a -skylight, and one window, opposite the door, was heavily barred. -Delicious! No one could get in. He was sitting in a deep and comfortable -chair. He felt rested and happy. There was a click, and he saw a tiny -window in the door drop down, as though worked by a sliding panel. Then -the door opened noiselessly, and in came a little man with smiling face -and soft brown eyes—Dr. Hancock.</p> -<p>Leidall’s first feeling was amazement. “Then I didn’t get into him -properly after all! Or I’ve slipped out again, perhaps! The dear, good -fellow!” And he rose to greet him. He put his hand out, and found that -the other came with it in some inexplicable fashion. Movement was -cramped. “Ah, then I’ve had a stroke,” he thought, as Hancock pressed -him, ever so gently, back into the big chair. “Do not get up,” he said -soothingly but with authority; “sit where you are and rest. You must -take it very easy for a bit; like all clever men who have overworked——”</p> -<p>“I’ll get in the moment he turns,” thought Leidall. “I did it badly -before. It must be through the back of his head, of course, where the -spine runs up into the brain,” and he waited till Hancock should turn. -But Hancock never turned. He kept his face towards him all the time, -while he chatted, moving gradually nearer to the door. On Leidall’s face -was the smile of an innocent child, but there lay a hideous cunning -behind that smile, and the eyes were terrible.</p> -<p>“Are those bars firm and strong,” asked Leidall, “so that no one can get -in?” He pointed craftily, and the doctor, caught for a second unawares, -turned his head. That instant Leidall was upon him with a roar, then -sank back powerless into the chair, unable to move his arms more than a -few inches in any direction. Hancock stepped up quietly and made him -comfortable again with cushions.</p> -<p>And something in Leidall’s soul turned round and looked another way. His -mind became clear as daylight for a moment. The effort perhaps had -caused the sudden change from darkness to great light. A memory rushed -over him. “Good God!” he cried. “I am violent. I was going to do you an -injury—you who are so sweet and good to me!” He trembled dreadfully, and -burst into tears. “For the sake of Heaven,” he implored, looking up, -ashamed and keenly penitent, “put me under restraint. Fasten my hands -before I try it again.” He held both hands out willingly, beseechingly, -then looked down, following the direction of the other’s kind brown -eyes. His wrists, he saw, already wore steel handcuffs, and a strait -waistcoat was across his chest and arms and shoulders.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Reward of Enterprise' id='s17'>THE REWARD OF ENTERPRISE</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By WARD MUIR</p> -<p>This is how it happened [said my friend Harborough].</p> -<p>I’m a novelist, as you know, but if I hadn’t had to take to writing I’d -have been a rolling stone by profession and by inclination. In my more -philosophic moods I perceive that, really, it was sheer luck ... this -occurrence about which you’ve asked me to tell you. I should never have -made a success of any other trade but authorship. I’d have starved; -instead I’m rather well off, as things go. But still——</p> -<p>You understand I was by way of being a bit venturesome, as a young man. -I did a certain amount of journalism, from time to time, but my secret -hopes were set on all that is implied in that specious phrase, “seeing -the world.” I wanted to see the world.</p> -<p>Keeping this object in view I shipped on a tramp steamer, with whose -captain I had struck up an acquaintanceship. Nominally I was the purser, -actually I was the Captain’s guest. Cargo boats such as the S.S. -<i>Peterhof</i> do not employ a purser.</p> -<p>No need to narrate the history of that voyage nor dwell upon the trivial -particulars of our life on board. Suffice it to say that in mid-Atlantic -our engines had a break-down. The <i>Peterhof</i> came to a standstill.</p> -<p>If it has ever happened to you during a big voyage you will know that -there is something portentous about the cessation of a steamer’s -machinery in mid-ocean. To be becalmed on a sailing ship may be boring: -to be becalmed—if such an expression can be used—on a steamer is almost -too queer to be boring. Day and night the engines have throbbed until -their throbbing has penetrated into your very marrow, and when the -throbbing abruptly dies you are sensible of a shock. When the <i>Peterhof</i> -halted I ran up on deck as speedily as though we had had a collision. I -saw, all round, nothing but sea, sea, sea, and it was far more amazing -than if I had beheld an island or an iceberg or a raft of shipwrecked -mariners, or any of the other picturesque phenomena which my fertile -fancy had hastened to invent as an explanation for our stoppage.</p> -<p>The <i>Peterhof’s</i> engines were antiquated, break-downs had occurred -before, and our two engineers, I learnt, would be able to effect a -repair. Twenty-four hours’ labour would set us going again—it turned out -to be only a slightly over-optimistic prophecy—and meanwhile, we were -free to admire, as best we might, the somewhat monotonous beauties of -the Atlantic.</p> -<p>There was not a breath of wind; the sun blazed from a cloudless sky; as -long as the <i>Peterhof</i> had been in motion we had considered the -temperature fairly cool, but now that her motion was arrested the heat -became very noticeable. The sea was, in a sense, absolutely smooth; but -its smoothness did not imply flatness, any more than the smoothness of a -carpet’s pile implies flatness if the carpet is being shaken. On the -contrary, the <i>Peterhof</i> was rolling upon the undulations of a heavy -ground-swell. The surface of that ground-swell was without a wrinkle, -polished and glossy like lacquer; but its hills and its dales were -gigantically high and deep; far higher and far deeper than I had -realised until the engines relinquished their task of propelling us -athwart them. Now, lying helpless upon the water, we swooped up to a -glazed summit, swooped down to the bottom of a satiny gulf, swooped up -again and down again, in a splendid, even oscillation—and (this was what -seemed so extraordinary to a landsman)—in absolute silence. It was -uncanny. Those fabulous billows never broke. There was not even a hiss -of foam against the side of the steamer. The <i>Peterhof</i> just tobogganned -down one stupendous gradient and up the next as though she had been -sliding on oil.</p> -<p>The thing fascinated me. I stood by the rail, revelling in this -prodigous sea-saw, and only gradually did it dawn upon me that we were -not really rushing down one slant and up the next, we were only being -lifted up and down vertically.</p> -<p>This discovery sounds foolish, but I can’t tell you how it excited me. I -got an empty biscuit tin from the steward and threw it into the sea, as -far as I could, and then watched it floating. You’d have said that that -biscuit tin would have been drawn away by the strength of the swell, or -else dashed against the <i>Peterhof’s</i> side; instead it simply sat there -at exactly the spot where it had fallen; and an hour after I had thrown -it into the water it had shifted, perhaps, only six or eight inches -nearer the steamer.</p> -<p>A project was forming in my mind. I looked at the water. It was a -peculiar, vitreous green, closer under the steamer, was transparent to -the depth of many feet. Beneath my shoe-soles the poop was hot; over -side, the sea looked inexpressibly inviting. And on a sudden I turned to -the drowsing Captain and exclaimed: “I want to bathe.”</p> -<p>“To <i>bathe</i>?” The Captain gazed at me.</p> -<p>“Why not?”</p> -<p>The Captain yawned out some lethargic suggestion to the effect that to -bathe would be dangerous because of the depth—as though I’d be more apt -to drown in three miles of water than in three fathoms.</p> -<p>Seafaring people are odd in that way—I don’t mean in their ignorance of -swimming, though, to be sure, the average sailor is seldom a swimmer. -They’re so—how shall I express it?—so unenterprising. In the midst of -adventure and romance they are stirred by no recognition either of the -adventures or the romantic.</p> -<p>I was a city-bred youngster, who had never been out of hail of the -homeland before, and I possessed more enterprise in my little finger -than that far-travelled Captain had in the whole of his weather-worn, -hulking lump of a carcass. I wanted to bathe. I wanted to bathe in the -mid-Atlantic. I had learnt to bathe in the public swimming-bath near my -old school, and now I wanted to try a swimming-bath three miles deep and -tilting continuously at an angle of I don’t know how many degrees. The -notion was gorgeous.</p> -<p>“I can swim,” I said. “You needn’t be afraid.”</p> -<p>“But the waves’ll sweep you away.”</p> -<p>“There aren’t any waves. Watch this biscuit tin. The top of the -Atlantic, at this moment, is like a string which is being twanged. The -vibrations are a hundred yards across, or more, and they look as though -they were travelling along the string; I suppose they are travelling -along the string; but a fly sitting on the string doesn’t travel along -with the vibrations, it only travels up and down. If I go in to bathe I -shan’t be swept away.”</p> -<p>The Captain hadn’t thought of it in that light. He tried to argue—but my -biscuit tin answered his argument. And eventually he allowed me to have -the ladder lowered; I stripped, descended the ladder, and launched -myself into the sea.</p> -<p>I struck out, to get clear of the ship, then ceased swimming and looked -around me. The sea was coldish, but not unendurable—and anyhow I was too -much in love with my situation to bother about that. Behind me the -<i>Peterhof</i> towered, like a cliff; I had never realised, before, how big -a five-thousand-ton vessel looks from the water. At her rail I could see -a cluster of the crew, watching me; the Captain on the poop. From -somewhere in the interior of the ship came the sound of hammering—the -engineers at work—and I noticed that this sound reached me more clearly -now than when I was on board.</p> -<p>But if the <i>Peterhof</i> appeared strange, from the water, how much -stranger was the view in the opposite direction! Or rather, the absence -of view!</p> -<p>The ground-swell had looked formidable when I was on the <i>Peterhof’s</i> -deck; here its aspect was terrific. The crystalline slope in which I was -cradled seemed to reach the sky; yet, without having climbed it, I -immediately found myself, instead of looking up the slope, looking down -it—down an oblique abyss of gleaming profundity. I seemed to fall and -fall and fall; nevertheless, there was no spasm of nausea; although I -was falling I was supported, sensuously, in my fall ... and I never -reached the finish of the fall; it merged, imperceptibly, into an -ascent; and a moment later I was surveying a fresh trough of glassiness, -or else gazing audaciously downward, downward on to the deck of the -<i>Peterhof</i>.</p> -<p>It was overwhelming. Never in all my life have I attained to a rapture -comparable with that bathe in mid-Atlantic. I knew, even at the time, -that it would be unforgettable. I had aspired to be able to say that I -had swum in water three miles deep ... oh, never mind what vain boast I -had promised myself. Boasting was forgotten. I was experiencing. I was -surrendered to an ecstasy, an enchantment, a glee, beyond expression -grandiose and delicious. I lolled in the pellucid water, not troubling -to swim. I let myself go, in those dizzy soarings and sinkings; I -abandoned myself to this vast and beautiful force; I felt at once -infinitely little and infinitely great.</p> -<p>The whole adventure was half terrifying and half ... well, comfortable. -Perched on the crown of one of those flawless ridges I felt, as I -toppled over, that I must either be smashed to pieces at the end of the -plunge or engulfed in some horrid undertow. But I knew that nothing of -the sort would happen. Quietly I paddled with my arms and feet; almost -contemptuously I gave myself to the puissant and colossal rhythm which -swayed me as high as a cathedral at every swing and then gently rocked -me down as deep as a valley. I tell you, the sensation was sublime ... -and I hadn’t even got my hair wet!</p> -<p>I remembered, in the middle of my bliss, this perfectly incongruous fact -that I hadn’t got my hair wet, and I prepared to “duck.” But at that -moment I heard a shout from the deck of the <i>Peterhof</i>.</p> -<p>I turned in the water, and saw that the Captain was gesticulating to me, -but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. The crew were shouting also, and -one of them had got a coil of rope over his arm and seemed to be making -ready to throw it. What did they mean?</p> -<p>Stupidly, in the tingling ardour and gusto of my enjoyment, I didn’t -make out, for a minute, what they were driving at; it occurred to me -that they had taken it into their heads that because I wasn’t swimming I -had got cramp. I signalled cheerily to them, to reassure them; but they -did not cease shouting ... and then, as I turned again, a little, in the -water, I knew....</p> -<p>Near the skyline rim of the superb mountain-range upon which I was -commencing to rise I saw, shadowy in the translucent green, an -unmistakable shape—the shape of a great fish: a shark. Its fin cut the -surface like a knife. For one instant I stared, and in that instant I -observed, with a vivid clearness, all manner of minute details—the -burnished sheen on the water, the glistening tautness of its lofty -skyline, the sapphire blue of the sky itself, and, most lucidly of all, -the silhouette of the shark. Every movement of the shark was now plain -to me; and it was moving, there was no doubt of it: a trail of bubbles -streamed from its flank and a tiny streak of froth fluttered behind the -fin. The shark was not passive, in the element, as I was; it was monarch -of the waves, it could drive through them with the precision of a -torpedo. I had invaded a realm which I had no business to invade ... and -its guardian was come to punish me.</p> -<p>An astonishingly coherent train of reflections such as these whirled -round my brain. They must have occupied a fraction of a second. I know -that, at all events, I struck out for the <i>Peterhof</i> without any -apparent pause. My arms and legs worked frantically; I swum as I had -never swum before. I hurled myself through the water.</p> -<p>Fortunately I had gone only a very short distance from the foot of the -steamer’s ladder. It seemed remote enough, though, I can tell you! My -eyes were bursting out of their sockets, but I could dimly see the -Captain leaning on the rail and shouting, and some of the men running -down the ladder to receive me. Then the rope was flung. It splashed -across me. I grasped it. I dug my nails into it. I clung to it with a -grip so fierce that I felt as though I was crushing it. Simultaneously -the men at the other end of the rope began pulling, and I was jerked -through the water in a lather of spray which swirled round my shoulders. -My arms and head were above the water, I was being dragged so fast up -the steamer’s side. I could still see the Captain, vaguely, confusedly. -His mouth was open, his hands were waving. But I wasn’t interested in -him, I was only interested in what was pursuing behind me. Gad! That was -an awful moment. I dream of it, sometimes, even now: the disgusting, -obscene terror of that dash for safety ... and I wake sweating with the -horror of it.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>Harborough paused.</p> -<p>“And how did your adventure end?” I asked.</p> -<p>“I don’t know. I lost consciousness. But I kept tight on to the rope. -They hauled me on board ... they told me afterwards that I hadn’t even -got my hair wet ... but ...” he hesitated.</p> -<p>“I’d had my experience—a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Dash it!” he -laughed. “It was almost worth it, I swear ... and I’m making money, now, -as a novelist, whereas if I’d continued my life of rolling stone I’d -certainly have arrived in prison or the poorhouse. Yes, I suppose that -every disaster has its compensations.</p> -<p>“But I confess I didn’t think so when I awoke on board the <i>Peterhof</i>—we -were plug-plugging onwards again by that time—and found that I’d got -only one leg.”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Grear’s Dam' id='s18'>GREAR’S DAM</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By MORLEY ROBERTS</p> -<p>There was dust everywhere; it was a red-hot world of dust. It lay upon -the roads where the labouring wheel tracks marked them out; but the -whole long plain was dust as well. Neither grass nor any green thing -showed, and dead, dry salt-bush, eaten by the sheep till it looked like -broken peasticks, was dust colour to the dancing horizon of that world -of thirst. For seven months and a week, by Wilson’s almanac, there had -been no rain, and what dew had fallen the hot air drank when the fierce -sun rose. And now not even the little fenced garden at Warribah showed -any sign of verdure. Water was precious, and each day the north wind -drank the water-holes drier and drier yet.</p> -<p>But, though the world of desolate Warribah was brown, in the roots of -grass and the mere sticks of salt-bush was sufficient nourishment to -keep life in the sheep who moved across the burnt paddocks of the -station; what they needed, and what they began to suffer for was water, -and the cloudless sky, luminous and terrible, bent over their world and -breathed fire upon them. The wind out of the Austral tropics was as -fierce as a blowpipe flame, or so it seemed. Hope and prosperity melted -under it, and the home at Warribah dissolved.</p> -<p>“I shall go mad,” said Wilson. And having said it, he sent his wife away -to the south. He could not keep a cheerful face before her; it was -easier to lie upon paper, easier to drift into silence that was not -disturbed by her tears. He was a lonely man again, as lonely as when he -had first fought with the bush, and conquered a space for himself where -no water ran.</p> -<p>And now the conquered territory that he had hoped to keep for the uses -of civilisation called in the sun and the north wind, and there was a -great fight in progress between man and nature. As he walked over what -he had won, or as he galloped, the caked and cracked earth fell into -powder, and rose choking and impalpable, as fine as flour. The gaunt, -spare box trees of the plains were powdered with its red-white film; -their dry verdure was obscured. The dust was mud upon his lips, mud upon -his cheeks as he sweated ice, to think the day was coming when there -could be no hope for him and no help.</p> -<p>“How long now?” he asked himself.</p> -<p>And all about the plains rose columns of dust as the uneasy, fretful -sheep, to whom his men doled water, moved up the wind seeking more.</p> -<p>“After ten years—this,” said Wilson, and he laughed. But those who heard -him laugh shivered, and contracted their brows. For he was a hard -worker, and had slaved for this—for bankruptcy, a sky of brass.</p> -<p>“The boss is crazy,” said the men at the hut.</p> -<p>An immense, intolerable sense of pity for the sheep possessed him. He -had no children, and the land he held had been as a child to him. Now -the plains he had delighted in were become ingrate. They refused him -help. The sheep were his children and his delight. He knew thousands of -them by sight, for he had the shepherd’s eye. There was a character -about the Warribah sheep that he had bestowed by his care and by his -choice. He had fenced them in against straying; had chased the cowardly -dingo and had slain him; he had rejoiced in the grass and the whitening -cotton-bush, and the succulence of thick-fleshed salt-bush. How often he -had ridden out and watched the sheep graze; it was a happy world when -the rains in their due season ceased, and the time for shearing came. It -was a riotous pleasure to hear the click of the shears. How the white -inner fleece gleamed and fell over, and parted and showed its woven -beauty! The movements of the shearers, and the sound of them, and the -sound of the pent or loosened sheep wove itself into a kind of fabric; -in the loom of time and the due sweet season pleasure grew, and success, -and the joy of well-doing.</p> -<p>And now there was death in the air and in the north wind. And behind it -ruin. There his ten thousand children would perish off the face of the -inexorable earth and be no more than white bones lying heaped against a -northern fence where no water was. He laughed a thin, crackling laugh, -and walked to and fro in front of his lonely house.</p> -<p>“The boss is crazy,” his men had said. Now in the hot and idle noon they -sat in the southward shadow of the crackling hut and watched him. The -old cook, a blear-eyed outcast thrown up by the seas upon the coast of -Australia, broke suddenly into a drivelling yarn.</p> -<p>“I knew it worse nor this—hell’s flames never beat it, on the Bogan that -year——”</p> -<p>He mumbled on.</p> -<p>“So they died, and the horses, too. Oh, it was cruel, cruel. And Webber -cut his throat from ear to ear, cut his crazy ’ead ’arf off.”</p> -<p>“What of your paddock, Jim?” asked Hill, the old hand of Warribah. The -young boundary rider spat drily.</p> -<p>“The jumbucks is suckin’ mud. The water stinks of yolk. You can smell it -a mile off. Ter-morrer I’ll have to fetch ’em in.”</p> -<p>The black and red ants ran riot in the hut and outside of it. The insect -world flourished and abounded. But for all their bronze there was a -pallid look about the men. Nature was no friend of theirs; they looked -out on fire and blinding light.</p> -<p>“I never knowed it worse.”</p> -<p>But old Blear Eyes had.</p> -<p>“So <i>he</i> blew his brains out.”</p> -<p>“Oh, dry up,” said Hill, but the cook murmured of ancient disasters on -the Darling and the Macquarie.</p> -<p>“Did you die of thirst, you old croaker, and jump up to choke us?”</p> -<p>And still Wilson wandered to and fro in the sunlight, though the sky was -inexorable.</p> -<p>“He’ll be shakin’ his fist at it yet,” said the cook, “and when a man -does that he never comes to no good. It’s all up with them as shakes a -fist at ’eaven. I’ve seen it myself. Now it was in ’79 that Jones of -Quandong Flats went mad. He shook ’is fist at the sky. I seen him, and -the next morning ’e was ravin’ ’orrid, as though the ’orrors of drink -was on ’im. And well I knowed ’em then.”</p> -<p>The boss came towards them through the hot sand, and he leant in the -shade against the pole on which the men’s saddles hung. The men looked -downcast and half-ashamed. Sydney Jim lost all his flashness and moved -uneasily. And the old cook shambled into his kitchen and fell to work -upon his bread.</p> -<p>“There’s little water in the Ten-Mile Tank, Jim?”</p> -<p>“They was suckin’ mud this morning, sir,” said Jim.</p> -<p>Wilson tugged at his grizzled beard and pulled his sunburnt hat over his -eyes.</p> -<p>“We should have put down wells,” said Hill.</p> -<p>Wilson broke into sudden blasphemy, and checked it with a kind of gasp, -as though he felt that madness lay just beyond the limits of his -self-control.</p> -<p>“So we should,” he said; “so we should.”</p> -<p>And he walked away.</p> -<p>“You took that cursin’ very quiet,” said Jim. And there was something in -Hill’s eye that made him flinch.</p> -<p>“Oh, well,” he said apologetically, and Hill glared at him. The heat was -in more than one.</p> -<p>“My son,” said Hill, “I’ve half a mind——”</p> -<p>And then he rose and followed Wilson. He caught him up and talked hard -till Wilson shook his head and went inside and slammed the door.</p> -<p>“He should make it up with Grear, and if Grear let him down on to the -river he might save some.”</p> -<p>For Warribah was in the back-blocks, and Grear held all the river -frontage for twenty miles.</p> -<p>“But they hate each other, and Wilson ain’t the man to crawl,” said -Hill. “He’s a good sort. I’ll go myself.”</p> -<p>He went back to the hut and, taking his saddle and bridle, walked to the -horse paddock, which seemed as barren as a stockyard. He caught his -horse, that was standing at the gate and looking wistfully towards the -stable as if he knew that good feed was there.</p> -<p>“Come,” said Hill, and he rode south through the pine scrub towards -Grear’s. He came to the station as the sun went down, and when he asked -for the boss Grear came out.</p> -<p>“Oh you!” he said roughly. “And what d’ye want?”</p> -<p>He was a long, thin man with a cold eye and thin lips, and as he looked -at him Hill felt that it was a foolish errand he had come on. The man -was worse than he had imagined. It seemed that Wilson was right. To ask -Grear for anything was to invite insult. And though Hill had come twenty -miles to ask he turned away.</p> -<p>“I haven’t seen you for nigh on a year,” said he, “and now I’ve seen -you, why, I shan’t weep if I never see you again.”</p> -<p>He got upon his horse solemnly and turned away, leaving Grear with an -open mouth.</p> -<p>“I was a fool to come,” said Hill, as he ploughed his way among the -sandhills. “He used to reckon that all the back-blocks was his, and -Wilson took ’em up. Grear don’t forgive.”</p> -<p>The night had come upon the land, but there was no remission of the hot -north wind. The heated earth radiated heat still, while in the clear -obscure of the heavens the stars glittered like sharp points of steel. -They stabbed Hill’s very heart as he rode and looked into the rainless -depths of heaven. For the sky was no overarching dome at that season. It -was an awful emptiness without form; it was space itself, unmitigated -and terrible, and heaven’s lamps were near and far and farther still, -while black, starless spaces showed like unfathomable patches in a -silent sea.</p> -<p>“Good God!” said Hill, and fear got hold of him suddenly. He roused his -horse to a canter for the sake of the noise of the motion. The sky -appalled him, and a peculiar sense of reversion took him. He was hung -over depths, and seemed to cling to the suspended earth.</p> -<p>“I’m crazy myself,” said Hill, with a quiver in his voice. And his very -voice broke the silence like a pistol shot. It made him start until he -heard a sheep’s faint baa in the distance. And then a mopoke called its -mate in the trees by an old dry creek. Hill pulled up.</p> -<p>“But it ain’t a creek after all,” he said to himself. “It’s a Billabong, -but it’s twenty years since water came out of the Lachlan so far as -Warribah, and Grear put a dam there fifteen years ago. Ah! if the river -only rose up, and came down roarin’. But it won’t; it won’t.”</p> -<p>As he dreamed of the river, now like a low water-hole with never a -current in it, Wilson, at home, lay in an uneasy sleep. He, too, -dreamed, and dreamed of rain, and he woke himself shouting, “Rain!” and -in his confusion called “Mary” to his wife five hundred miles away.</p> -<p>“Oh God! I dreamt it again,” he said. “I dreamed of rain in our old -place east, and the river came down with thunder and floods, and the -land grew green in an hour—green, green!”</p> -<p>He fell asleep again, and when he woke at dawn he was oddly cheerful. -Perhaps the rest from anxiety in that happy dream had taken part of the -strain from his weary mind.</p> -<p>“I do feel as if it had rained somewhere,” he said; “and if the weather -only breaks anywhere we may have it here.”</p> -<p>“Don’t you think it cooler?” he said to Hill next morning. But the sky -was brass and the sun white hot.</p> -<p>That evening a man riding through to Conoble from Condobolin told him -that he had heard it had rained east of Forbes. And another man who -camped at the Ten-Mile Clump said he knew there had been a great -thunderstorm to the east.</p> -<p>“I dreamed it, so I did!” cried Wilson; “and the Lachlan’s coming down.”</p> -<p>His jaw fell even as he spoke. What use was the Lachlan to him out in -the beyond, when Grear’s lay between? He had no river frontage. Grear -had it all.</p> -<p>In such a country, in spite of its apparent desolation, news travels -fast. They heard that the Lachlan, so quiet at Condobolin, was running -hard at Forbes. It was out in the flats, where the felled trees marked -the old mining camp. There had been a storm, a great cloudburst, in its -head waters, and the river grew alive. Wilson saddled up and rode thirty -miles to see it, and came to the gum-lined ditch just in time to hear -the stream awake. It stirred before his eyes, it became turbid, grew -grey, bubbled, moved and ran, with sticks and leaves and branches on its -full tide.</p> -<p>And still the sky overhead was fire, and the sun a flame. Wilson cursed -it, and prayed to the beautiful grey water. Why should not rain come -there? And soon. But as he rode back he came to sheep of his that stood -against a fence, and pressed on it, as though water was beyond it. Pity -stirred him; he drove them through a gate, and let them suck his last -low tank.</p> -<p>That night Wilson came to the men’s hut under its pines in the sand -dune, and called to Hill.</p> -<p>“Hill, I want to speak to you,” he said, and presently his man came out -into the night. The stars were brilliant. Jupiter was like a little -moon, and cast faint shadows.</p> -<p>“There’ll be no rain here,” said Wilson. “Were you sleeping? I can’t -sleep! Do you hear?”</p> -<p>He waved his hand around the barren horizon.</p> -<p>“I hear,” said Hill.</p> -<p>He heard the sheep.</p> -<p>“You say that old Billabong once came down to Warribah?” asked Wilson.</p> -<p>Hill nodded.</p> -<p>“So they say. But Grear’s dam would stop it.”</p> -<p>“He’s no right to have it there,” said Wilson, savagely. “Look, Hill, I -can’t sleep. I’ll ride out to the dam.”</p> -<p>“I’ll come with you,” said Hill.</p> -<p>“You’re a good sort, Jack,” cried the boss. And they rode together -through the wonderful night, that was so terrible to them, with its hot, -dry air out of the oven of the north.</p> -<p>When they came at last to the long, low dam they tied their horses to -saplings, and sat down. Wilson spoke after a quarter of an hour’s -silence.</p> -<p>“It would be hard to lose it after these years,” he said. “And here’s -Grear’s dam with a fence atop of it. He’s a hard one, Jack!”</p> -<p>“Ay,” said Hill, “he’s hard.”</p> -<p>And Wilson, who had not really slept for days, lay down upon the earth -and dozed, while the star shadows of the gaunt thin boxes moved a foot. -In the hollow of the Billabong some dry reeds, like a cane-brake, -rustled faintly in the air. The leaves of the trees crackled, and -underneath these sharper sounds was the hum of the insect world. Far -away, on every side, the sheep called uneasily for water. What had -seemed silence grew into a very chorus, organic with the earth. The -horses champed their bits and pawed the dusty soil; and once one -whinnied, and was answered by a far-off call from Grear’s.</p> -<p>“I wonder what the river’s like,” thought Hill. He pulled out his pipe -and lighted it. The flare of the match extinguished the starlight for a -moment, and then the darkness melted once more, and he saw each separate -tree, each leaf, each reed.</p> -<p>“I wonder.”</p> -<p>For if the river was in high flood, and over the banks, the Billabong -must be full at Grear’s. And suddenly he heard a sound that he knew -well. He laid his hand upon Wilson’s shoulder.</p> -<p>“D’ye hear it, sir? What is it?”</p> -<p>But both knew. Grear’s sheep were moving from east and west towards -water.</p> -<p>“The blackfellows were right,” said Wilson. “The Billabong is coming -down.”</p> -<p>The horses trampled uneasily, and seemed aware of a change. Perhaps they -too smelt the grey flood as it crawled. And all the air seemed full of -whispers, loud and louder yet. For even the thinned bush is alive, and -holds carnival at midnight and beyond it. A snake crawled by them on the -dam, and suddenly being aware of nigh enemies, it slipped away hastily, -and hid in the hollow trunk of a fallen dwarf box. The sheep on Warribah -grew more uneasy; he heard a distant baa, and then a nearer cry, and a -plaintive chorus came down the dry, hot wind.</p> -<p>“I can’t listen to ’em,” said Wilson. “It makes me mad.”</p> -<p>He rested his head upon his knees, and kept his hands to his ears. But -suddenly he rose up.</p> -<p>“If the water comes we’ll cut the dam, Hill.”</p> -<p>“I would,” said Hill.</p> -<p>“Go back and fetch Jim, and bring shovels,” said Wilson. “I’ll cut it. -If the water comes, I’ve a right to it.”</p> -<p>And Hill rode homeward fast. And as he rode the boss sat still upon the -dam, and looked upon the faintly outlined hollow of the ancient -waterway. And again he dozed, and did not see that round the far bend of -the hollow came a sneaking, quiet band of grey water, like a crawling -snake. But as he slept the night chorus increased, and away to the south -the full sheep baa’ed with content. The Warribah sheep heard and knew, -and moved south through the night: and suddenly ten thousand broke into -a gallop, and stayed in a heap against the fence that topped the dam. -Their voices agonised; they woke Wilson suddenly, and he reached out his -hand and touched water.</p> -<p>And he heard horses galloping. This was Hill returning.</p> -<p>“Thank God!” said Wilson, and he prayed to Heaven with sudden -thankfulness.</p> -<p>But then he started, for the horses came from the south. They came from -Grear’s, and he knew what that meant.</p> -<p>“I’ll do it if I have to kill him,” said Wilson. For behind him the -painful chorus of the sheep was deafening. He saw them packed against -the bulging wires. His heart bled for them, his children.</p> -<p>And then three horses burst through the thin bush.</p> -<p>“Oh, we’re in time,” said Grear. “I thought as much, but we’re in time. -Who’s that?”</p> -<p>“Wilson of Warribah,” said Wilson. “Grear, you will let the water -through.”</p> -<p>And Grear laughed.</p> -<p>“To you that sneaked in and took up my back-lots? Oh, it’s likely, -likely!”</p> -<p>“But the sheep are dying, Grear.”</p> -<p>“Mine ain’t,” said Grear. “Get over the fence and off my land. I’ll not -have you here.”</p> -<p>And Wilson burst into a passionate appeal that was almost a scream.</p> -<p>“Look here, man, if you are a man. I’ll give you ten per cent of ’em to -cut the dam. They’re dying. Oh, my God! hear ’em, Grear; hear ’em! And -I’ve bred ’em. I watched ’em grow. Oh, Grear, I’ll give you half!”</p> -<p>And Grear swore horribly.</p> -<p>“I’ll see them die, and see you get out. I don’t want you here.”</p> -<p>And now in the noise the sheep made it was difficult to hear a man -speak. But the water grew up silently, and spread out, filling the -hollow—a grateful and splendid sheet.</p> -<p>“’Tain’t all yours,” screamed Wilson. “The dam’s not legal. You’ve no -right to rob me and my sheep.”</p> -<p>“Then go to law, you dog, and have it proved,” said Grear. And as he -spoke Hill came galloping, and with him Jim and two other men. And they -carried shovels.</p> -<p>“Look,” said Wilson. “We’re five to you three, you and your men. I mean -to have the water.”</p> -<p>“Never!” cried Grear, and getting off his horse he walked up the dam to -where Wilson stood.</p> -<p>“Get over the fence,” he said.</p> -<p>And Wilson leant against the fence and the sheep behind him. He dabbled -with his hand in their wool. Their hot breath fanned him.</p> -<p>“Don’t, Grear, don’t,” he pleaded. “What would you think if I did the -same to you?”</p> -<p>“You can’t,” said Grear, and he laughed. “I’ve the river at my back.”</p> -<p>And Hill with a spade in his hand pressed through the sheep, until he -came to Wilson. He touched the boss’s shoulder, and Wilson calmed as he -took the spade.</p> -<p>“You don’t mean that they’re to die, Grear, do you?” he asked, with a -catch in his voice.</p> -<p>“What’s that to me?”</p> -<p>“It’s much to me,” said Wilson. “Oh, Grear, I’d rather be hanged than -let it be.”</p> -<p>“Would you? Then be hanged, you rat!” said Grear.</p> -<p>And Wilson lifted the spade, and split Grear’s head with it, and the man -fell back into the water, and dyed it with his blood. But he was dead -before he touched the silver grey stream that had slain him.</p> -<p>And Wilson fell to work digging.</p> -<p>“Good God!” said Hill, and the dead squatter’s men cried out.</p> -<p>“Dig, dig,” said Wilson. “Dig! Grear’s got his water. I’ll have mine.”</p> -<p>When the sun rose his sheep were content.</p> -<p>“Now we’ll see what the law says,” cried Wilson. And he rode south to -find the law.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The King of Maleka' id='s19'>THE KING OF MALEKA</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By H. DE VERE STACPOOLE</p> -<h3>1</h3> -<p>Connart had started in life with a fine, open, believing disposition, -and with that disposition for his chief asset he had entered the world -of business. At thirty he had lost nearly everything but his heart, yet -it was stolen from him, also, by one Mary Bateman of Boston, a -quiet-looking little woman, endowed with common sense, a few thousand -dollars and a taste for travel. It was this taste, combined with a -slight weakness of the lungs, that induced Connart to go into the -Pacific trade, also a legacy, from an English relation, amounting to -some two thousand pounds odd, which enabled him to make the new start in -business without calling on his wife’s capital.</p> -<p>Dobree of San Francisco gave him the pitch. Connart had the qualities of -his defects. Men robbed him, but they liked him. Men are queer things. -Dobree, in business, was a very tough person indeed, quite without any -finer feelings, and never giving a cent or a chance away, yet, taking a -liking to Connart, he gave him a house, a go-down, and the chance of -success on this Island, by name of Maleka, for nothing.</p> -<p>“I had a station there up to six months ago,” said Dobree, “but I’m -getting rid of my copra interests. You can have the house, charter a -schooner and fill up with trade and go down there, it’s a good climate -and will suit your wife. You won’t make a fortune, but you won’t do -badly if you stick to your guns and don’t let the Kanakas get the -weather gauge on you. There’s only one man there, Seedbaum is his name, -he’s a tough customer by all accounts, but there’s copra enough for -two—I know a schooner you can have, the <i>Golden Gleam</i>; she’s owned by -old Tom Bowlby. I’ve got a fellow at a station on Tomasu, that’s a -hundred and fifty miles west of Maleka. There’s a cargo waiting shipment -there. Bowlby can drop you and your stuff at Maleka, then pick up my -cargo at the other place. You won’t have your copra ready for some -months and you can make arrangements with him to come back for it. You -might make arrangements to work in future with Bowlby, he’s a straight -man. You might work with him as partner.”</p> -<p>It was easy to be seen that Dobree was not only giving things away, but -going out of his course to make things smooth. Connart felt glowingly -thankful.</p> -<p>“It’s more than good of you,” said he, “but it seems to me you will lose -over this, for a location like that is worth money.”</p> -<p>“So are cigars,” said Dobree, “but if I give a box of cigars to a friend -he doesn’t complain that the gift is worth money. D——n money,” continued -this money-grubber, “it’s worth nothing but the fun of making it—well, -will you take your cigars, or shall I give the box to someone else?”</p> -<p>Connart said no more. In three weeks’ time the <i>Golden Gleam</i>, which was -lying at the wharves, had taken her cargo of all the multitudinous -things that go by the name of “trade,” and one bright morning, tacking -against the wind from the sea, she left the Golden Gate behind her.</p> -<p>Mrs. Connart stood on deck, watching bald Tamalpais across the blue, -scudding sea of the wake.</p> -<p>When you go to the Pacific Islands you die to all the things you have -known, but you are at least sure that you are going to heaven—if you -avoid the low islands.</p> -<p>Mrs. Connart knew the first fact. Down below in her cabin she carried -with her the relics of the life she would no longer lead, down to a -well-worn riding habit and a whip that would most likely never touch -horse again, but she was not despondent, quite the reverse.</p> -<p>You may be sea-sick in a Pacific schooner, bucking against the swell and -bending to the north-west trades, you may be mutinous, or angry, or -tipsy, but despondency, that low fever of cities and civilisation, has -no place out there.</p> -<p>“You ain’t feelin’ the sea, ma’am?” said Captain Bowlby, ranging up -alongside of her.</p> -<p>“No,” said she, “I’m a good sailor.”</p> -<p>“I bet you are,” said the captain.</p> -<p>Bowlby had a keen eye for ships and women. He had taken a liking to Mrs. -Connart at first sight. She had a steady eye and sure smile that pleased -him, and some days later, alone with Ambrose the mate, he voiced his -opinions.</p> -<p>“Looks like a mouse, don’t she? Well, there ain’t no mouse about her -barring her look. She’s one of them quiet sorts that’d back-chat a -congressman if she was put to it, or take a lion by the tail if it was -makin’ for one of her kids. I bet she’s rudder and compass both to -Connart. She and he fit as if they was welded. Did you ever take notice -that there’s chaps you meet that’re only half men till they get a woman -that fits them clapped on to them? If she don’t fit they go under the -first beam sea they meet; if she do, weather won’t hurt them.”</p> -<p>Ambrose concurred. He was a concurring individual, with few opinions of -his own on any matters outside his trade.</p> -<p>“I reckon you’re right,” said he, “though I don’t know much about -women—I never had the time,” he finished, apologetically.</p> -<h3>2</h3> -<p>They raised Maleka at six o’clock one brilliant morning, and by nine it -had developed before them, mountainous and green, showing, through the -glasses, the blowing foliage, torrent traces and the foam on the barrier -reef.</p> -<p>To Connart and his wife there seemed something miraculous in the -unfolding of this island from the wastes of the blue and desolate sea. -They had pictured this new home often in their minds, but they had -pictured nothing like this. It had been waiting for them all their -lives, and it seemed to them now that the souls of all the pleasant -places they had ever seen or dreamed of were waiting to greet them on -that summer-girdled reef.</p> -<p>As they passed the break and entered the lagoon the true island beach of -blinding white sand showed its curve lipped by the emerald waters, and -through the foliage came glimpses of the white houses of the little -town.</p> -<p>“Look,” said Mrs. Connart, wide-eyed and drawing deep breaths as if to -inhale the strangeness and beauty of the scene before her, “there are -people on the beach, natives, and look at the canoes.”</p> -<p>“There’s a boat pushing off,” said Connart, “and a big fellow in a -striped suit in her.”</p> -<p>“That’s Seedbaum,” said Captain Bowlby; “wonder what he wants, comin’ to -inspect—gin, likely.”</p> -<p>The anchor fell, waking the echoes of the woods, and the <i>Golden Gleam</i>, -swinging to the tide that was just beginning to steal out of the lagoon, -lay with her nose pointing to the beach whilst the boat came alongside, -and the man in the striped suit scrambled on board.</p> -<p>He was a big man, with bulging eyes, a shaved head, and feet encased in -worn-out tennis shoes. The suit seemed made of flannelette.</p> -<p>Mrs. Connart at first sight took a profound dislike to this individual.</p> -<p>Seedbaum—for Seedbaum it was—saluted Bowlby, gave him good-day, cast his -eye at the strangers and opened up.</p> -<p>“I knew you before you made the anchorage,” said he, “dropped in for -water, I suppose.”</p> -<p>“No, I’ve water enough till I fetch Tomasu,” replied Bowlby, “I’ve -brought some trade.”</p> -<p>“Trade,” said Seedbaum, offering a cigar. “Well, I don’t mind taking -some prints and knives off you at a reasonable price. I’m full up with -canned goods and tobacco, still—at a reasonable figure——”</p> -<p>“The trade’s not mine,” said Bowlby, lighting the cigar. “It belongs to -the new trader—that gentleman there, Mr. Connart’s his name, let me make -you known. Mr. Connart, this is Mr. Seedbaum.”</p> -<p>“Glad to make your acquaintance,” said Connart.</p> -<p>Seedbaum, fingering an unlit cigar, stared at Connart.</p> -<p>“Well, this gets me,” said he. “Why, Dobree cleared his last man out for -good, there’s not business enough in this island for two—that’s -flat—what’d he want sending you for?”</p> -<p>“He didn’t send me,” replied Connart.</p> -<p>“Then,” said Seedbaum, “what brought you here, anyway?”</p> -<p>“I think,” said Mrs. Connart, “this ship brought us here—and, excuse -me—do you own this island?”</p> -<p>Seedbaum stared at her, then his glance fell before that quiet, -unwavering gaze, and he turned to Bowlby.</p> -<p>“Well,” said he, “it’s none of my affair if the whole continent of the -States comes here to find copra—if it’s to be found—but it seems to me -this is a pretty dry ship.”</p> -<p>“Come down below,” said Bowlby.</p> -<p>They went below and the pop of a beer-bottle cork followed upon their -descent.</p> -<p>“Oh, what a creature!” said Mrs. Connart. “George, why is it that -humanity alone produces things like that?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know,” said Connart, “but I wish humanity had not produced it -here.”</p> -<p>Seedbaum came on deck again mollified by beer. Despite the set-down he -had received he nodded to the new-comers as he went over the side, and -as they watched him being rowed ashore, Bowlby, leaning on the rail, -spat into the water and spoke.</p> -<p>“I didn’t much trouble tellin’ you of that chap on the way out,” said -Bowlby. “There’s no use in meetin’ troubles half way, and there’s not an -island in the hull Pacific you won’t find trouble of some sort in. If -you go in for Pacific tradin’ there’s two things you have to face, -cockroaches and men. I’ve kept the old Gleam pretty free of ‘roaches by -fumigatin’, but you can’t fumigate islands. If you could I reckon you’d -see more rats with hands and feet takin’ to the water than’s ever been -seen since the Ark discharged cargo. Seedbaum’d be one of them, but you -have his measure now and you’ll know enough to go careful with him. -Wiart, the last man that was here, got on all right with him. You see, -they were pretty much of a pair, and it’s my belief they were hand in -glove, as you might say, but I reckon you won’t have much use for a -glove like that. Well, I’ll get you ashore now to see your house and -I’ll help to fix it up for you. We’ll begin gettin’ the cargo ashore -to-morrow.”</p> -<p>He ordered a boat to be lowered and they rowed ashore.</p> -<p>Never, not even in dreamland, had Mrs. Connart experienced anything so -strange as that stepping on shore from the bow of the boat run high and -dry on the shelving beach, never anything like the touch of land after -the long, long weeks of seafaring, and the sights, the sounds, the -perfumes all new, belonging to a new life to be lived in a new world.</p> -<p>The white houses set in a little garden at the far end of the village -pleased her as much as the place. Her house is almost as much as her -husband to a woman, for, to a woman a house implies so much more than to -a man. There are good houses and bad houses, crazy houses exhibiting the -folly of their builders in stucco turrets or mad chimney pots, and -stupid houses without character or proper sculleries and sinks. The -house at Maleka, though small and possessing few rooms, was cheerful and -had a pleasant personality of its own, but it did not possess a stick of -furniture. Mrs. Connart with the prescience of a woman and assisted by -the advice of Bowlby, had brought with them from San Francisco articles -of furniture not to be obtained in the islands, unless at a ruinous -cost. Mats, cane chairs and hammocks could be obtained from the natives. -All the same, there had been furniture in the house and it was gone. -Dobree had given them a list of things and amongst them was an article -on which Mrs. Connart had, woman-like, set her heart. “One red cedar -chest, four foot six by three foot,” was its specification.</p> -<p>“But who can have taken them?” said she, as they stood in the empty -front room, after a tour of inspection. “There was crockery ware, -besides, and oh, ever so many things, and Mr. Dobree was so kind. He -would not take a penny for them. You remember, George, he said: ‘When I -give a friend a box of cigars I don’t take the bands off them, whatever -is there you can have’—and now there’s nothing!”</p> -<p>“Maybe the Kanakas have taken them,” said Bowlby.</p> -<p>“Or Seedbaum,” said Connart.</p> -<p>“As like as not,” replied the captain. “He seems to look on the blessed -place as his. He told me down in the cabin he reckoned he was king of -Maleka, and that all the Kanakas jumped to his orders as if he was king. -He’s got a clutch on the place, there’s no denying that, and he manages -to keep missionaries away somehow or ’nother. I’m afraid you’re going to -have trouble with that chap.”</p> -<p>“I’m not afraid of him,” said Connart. “I’ve got a revolver and can use -it if worst comes to the worst.”</p> -<p>“Oh, it’s not revolvers I’m thinkin’ of,” said the captain, “it’s -trickery; he’d trick the devil out of his hoofs and then make gelatine -of them, would Seedbaum; have no trade dealin’s with him; take my -advice, just stick to the Kanakas.”</p> -<p>“Let’s go and ask him, right now, if he knows where the things have gone -to,” said Mrs. Connart.</p> -<p>“Well, that’s not a bad idea,” said Bowlby. “He’s sure to lie; anyhow, -it’ll clear matters.”</p> -<p>Seedbaum’s house was a substantially built coral-lime-washed building, -with a broad verandah in which hung a cage containing a parrot, the -garden was neat and well-tended, and the whole place had an air of quiet -prosperity, neatness and order, as though the better part of the owner’s -character were here exhibited for the general view.</p> -<p>Seedbaum was seated on the verandah, reading a San Francisco paper -obtained from Bowlby.</p> -<p>Seeing them approach he rose to greet them.</p> -<p>“I’ve come to ask you about the furniture in our house,” said Connart. -“There were quite a lot of things left by the last man, and I have a -list of them, but everything has gone, been taken away—do you know -anything of the matter?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know anything of what you call furniture,” said the other. -“Wiart sold me his sticks when he left for fifty dollars, and a bad -bargain it was.”</p> -<p>“He sold you them?”</p> -<p>“Yes.”</p> -<p>“But they belonged to Mr. Dobree.”</p> -<p>“Oh, did they; well, Dobree will have to dispute that with Wiart. Wiart -said they were his.”</p> -<p>“Have you his receipt?”</p> -<p>“Lord, no, there was no receipt in the matter. I handed him over the -dollars and he handed me over the rubbish. It was a favour to him.”</p> -<p>“Was there a cedar-wood chest?” asked Mrs. Connart.</p> -<p>“There was. It’s in my house now, there; you can see it through the -door.”</p> -<p>Through the open door which gave a view of the front room Mrs. Connart -saw the object of her desire. It was a beauty, solid, moth-defying, with -brass corners and brass handles. It was hers by all right, and Seedbaum -had tricked her out of it. She spoke:</p> -<p>“That chest is mine,” said she. “Mr. Dobree gave it to me, it was his -property, and Mr. Wiart had no right to sell it.”</p> -<p>“Well,” said Seedbaum, “he sold it, and if there’s any trouble over it -it will be between Dobree and Wiart, and Wiart was going to Japan, so he -said when he left here, so Dobree had better go to Japan and have it out -with him.”</p> -<p>Mrs. Connart turned.</p> -<p>“Come,” said she to the others, “there is no use talking any more to -this person. I will write to Mr. Dobree.”</p> -<p>They turned away and Seedbaum sat down again to read his newspaper.</p> -<p>“That’s what I said,” spoke Bowlby. “Monkey tricks; you see how he’s -placed; Wiart’s gone Lord knows where, and Pacific Coast law don’t run -here. The way for you to do is to lay low and fetch him in the eye -unexpected, somehow, though if you take my advice you’ll give him a wide -offing. There’s no use in fightin’ with alligators; better leave them -be. Hullo, what’s that?”</p> -<p>They turned.</p> -<p>Seedbaum had come out of the verandah.</p> -<p>A passing native had drawn his ire for some reason or another, and the -redoubtable Seedbaum was storming at him. Then he kicked the native, and -the latter, a big, powerful man, turned and ran.</p> -<p>“The coward!” said Mrs. Connart.</p> -<p>“I expect that chap ain’t a coward,” said Bowlby. “He’s just ’feared of -Seedbaum. I reckon there’re some curious things in nature. I’ve seen a -whole ship’s company livin’ in terror of a hazin’ captain. They could -have hove him overboard and swore he fell over—for the after guard was -as set against him as the fo’c’sle—but they didn’t. Just let themselves -be driv’ like sheep and kicked like terriers. It’s the same with the -Kanakas on this island, I expect.”</p> -<p>“He’s got a personal ascendancy over them,” said Connart.</p> -<p>“I reckon he’s got something like that,” said Captain Bowlby.</p> -<h3>3</h3> -<p>In a week they were settled down, and a few days later, the cargo having -been landed and stored, the <i>Golden Gleam</i> took her departure.</p> -<p>They went down to the beach to see her off; they watched her topsails -vanish beyond the reef, and they returned, feeling very much alone in -the world. A good man is warmth and light even to the souls of sinners. -Captain Bowlby was illiterate; his language was free; he was not a -saint, but he was a good, human man right through. The sea turns out -characters like this just as she turns out shells. It is a pity that -they have to cling to the ocean and the beaches; the cities want them.</p> -<p>“I feel just as if I had lost a near relation,” said Mrs. Connart.</p> -<p>“Well, we’ll have him back soon,” said her husband. “It’s up to us now -to get the copra to give him a cargo.”</p> -<p>Next morning the new trader began business by laying out a selection of -goods on the verandah of his store. Mrs. Connart, who knew something of -the Polynesian dialects and who had the art of picking up unknown -tongues, had already got in touch with the Kanakas; they charmed and -pleased her, especially the children, and wherever she went she was -greeted by friendly faces. It seemed to her that the population of this -island, leaving out Seedbaum, her husband and herself, consisted -entirely of children, children of different sizes and different ages, -but children all the same.</p> -<p>Returning that day from a long walk in the woods she found Connart -smoking a pipe on the verandah of their house. He looked rather -depressed.</p> -<p>“I can’t make it out,” said he; “there’s no trade doing.”</p> -<p>“Maybe they don’t know you have started in business yet.”</p> -<p>“Oh, yes, they do; lots of them have passed and seen the store open; -they’ve turned to look at the goods, and they seemed attracted, but they -went on.”</p> -<p>“Well, give them time,” said she.</p> -<p>“Look,” said Connart, “there’s copra going to Seedbaum’s; they’re -trading with him, right enough.”</p> -<p>Mrs. Connart watched the copra bearers, but said nothing.</p> -<p>In her heart she felt that Seedbaum was moving against them by some -stealthy means. At first she thought that it might be possible he had -worked upon the native mind and induced the Kanakas to put a taboo upon -the newcomers, but she dismissed this idea at once. There was no taboo. -The Kanakas were not a bit afraid of either her or her husband, on the -contrary, there was every evidence of friendliness.</p> -<p>“Well,” she said that night, when the store was closed for the day -without a knife or a stick of tobacco changing hands, “there’s nothing -to be done till we find out why they are acting so. It’s that creature, -I am sure. He began by robbing me of my beautiful cedar-wood chest, and -he’s going on to rob you of your chances in business. Well, let him -beware. I’m Christian enough not to wish to hurt him, but I’m Christian -enough to believe there’s a power that punishes the wicked, and he’s -wicked. I knew him for a wicked man directly he came on board the ship.”</p> -<p>“He keeps to himself, and that’s one good thing,” said Connart; “but I -don’t see how he can stop the natives from trading with us.”</p> -<p>“I don’t, either, but I know he does,” said she.</p> -<p>The next day passed without business being done, and the next.</p> -<p>“We may as well shut up shop, it seems to me,” said Connart. “How would -it be if you spoke to some of these people and asked them what is the -matter?”</p> -<p>“I’ve thought of that,” said his wife, “and I held off -because—because—oh, I don’t know, it seems sort of indelicate to ask -people why they don’t come to one’s store. I’ll do it to-morrow morning -first thing. One mustn’t let one’s feelings stand in the way when one’s -living is concerned.”</p> -<p>“I wish we had never come here,” said he, “for your sake.”</p> -<p>“Never come here?” she cried. “Why, I wouldn’t for the earth have gone -anywhere else! I love the place and I love people, and what are -difficulties? Why, difficulties are the main excitement in life. If life -wasn’t an obstacle race, it would be a very flat affair. George, we have -got to beat that man, and I’m going to, you wait and see.”</p> -<p>He kissed her and blessed her, and they sat down that night to a game of -cribbage, Seedbaum and the wickedness of the world forgotten.</p> -<p>Next morning after breakfast Mrs. Connart went out. She passed through -the village and on to the beach, brilliant in the morning light, -breeze-blown and filled with the murmurs of the reef; some natives were -pulling in a net and she watched them, chatting to them and playing with -the children who had come down to secure the little fish. Then she had a -talk with a woman who was standing by, a woman dark and straight as an -arrow, a woman mild-eyed and with a voice sweet as the sound of running -water.</p> -<p>Leaving her, Mrs. Connart passed to a man who was engaged in mending an -outrigger of one of the canoes hauled up on the beach; she had a talk -with him.</p> -<p>Then she returned, walking slowly and thoughtfully to the house, where -she found her husband.</p> -<p>“George,” said she. “I am right. It is that Creature. The people hate -him, but they are afraid of him. It seems absolutely absurd, but it is -so. He holds them in a spell. He kicks them and beats them, but they are -not afraid of that. It’s just him.”</p> -<p>“Good Lord,” said Connart, “why on earth don’t they rise against him, -and tell him to go to the devil; he’s only one man, anyway.”</p> -<p>“I don’t know,” said she. “It’s a mystery of human nature. He’s the -tyrant type, and it’s always been the same in the world; there’s some -sort of magnetism in that type that keeps folk under. History is full of -that. It’s the soft man and the kindly man and the good man that’s -assassinated, but tyrants seem to go free. He’s what he said he was, the -king of this place—well, we must see what we can do to pull him from his -throne. I wish there were more whites here.”</p> -<p>“That’s the bother,” said Connart.</p> -<p>Next morning they found a basket of fruit on their verandah, a gift from -some unknown person. It was as though the Kanakas, afraid to show their -sympathy and friendliness openly for the strangers, had done it in this -manner. But no one came to trade.</p> -<p>That night two chickens, some sweet potatoes and another basket of fruit -were deposited in the same place.</p> -<p>“And we can’t thank them,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I believe these -haven’t all come from one person. I think it’s everyone here—they all -like us. Oh, George, isn’t it maddening that we can’t have them openly -our friends, just because of that Beast!”</p> -<p>“It is,” said George.</p> -<p>Now at eleven o’clock that morning, Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah -and engaged on some needle-work, noticed a little native girl, who, -pausing at the garden gate and seeming undecided, at last picked up -courage, opened the gate and came towards the house.</p> -<p>Connart was in the house, going over some accounts, when his wife ran in -to him.</p> -<p>“George, come at once,” cried she; “such a dreadful thing—they’ve risen -against Seedbaum and they are killing him somewhere in the woods, and -they want us to go and see!”</p> -<p>“Good Lord!” cried he, “killing him! Want us to go and see! Are they -mad?”</p> -<p>He picked up his hat and came out on the verandah, where the pretty -little native girl was waiting, a flower of the scarlet hibiscus in her -hair and calm contentment in her eyes.</p> -<p>“I can’t quite make out all she says,” said Mrs. Connart; “but I can -make out her meaning.”</p> -<p>“You’d better stay here,” said he, “whilst I go; there may be trouble.”</p> -<p>“I am not afraid,” she replied. “Come on, we may be too late.”</p> -<p>They followed the child.</p> -<p>“Tell her to hurry,” said Connart.</p> -<p>“She says we need not hurry,” replied she; “as far as I can make out -they are only going to kill him—I expect they have him a prisoner -somewhere; well, much as I hate him, I am glad we will be able to save -him.”</p> -<p>“That depends on how the natives take it,” said he.</p> -<p>The child led them from the road by a path trod by the copra gatherers, -a path running through the wonderland of the woods, a green gloom where -the soaring palms shot upwards through a twilight roofed with moving -shadows and sun sparkles.</p> -<p>They reached a glade where a number of natives were seated in a circle. -Above them and swinging by a cord from two trees was hanging a little -disk about half the size of a tambourine; the disk was made of cane, and -so constructed as to leave a small hole in the centre. An old native -woman seated under the disk was clapping her hands and repeating -something that sounded like an incantation. Every pair of eyes in the -whole of that assembly was fixed upon the disk.</p> -<p>The child whispered something to Mrs. Connart. Then she turned from the -child and whispered to her husband.</p> -<p>“It’s only witchcraft. That’s a soul trap. They are waiting for a fly to -pass through the hole in that thing. If it does, then Seedbaum will -die.”</p> -<p>“Good heavens,” murmured Connart, with a half-laugh. “Why, the fellow -hasn’t any soul—not enough to furnish out a fly.”</p> -<p>They watched patiently for ten minutes. There were plenty of flies; they -rested on the little tambourine, crawled round its edge, but not one -went through the hole.</p> -<p>“Come,” whispered Connart.</p> -<p>They withdrew, taking the path back.</p> -<p>“It’s pathetic,” murmured she.</p> -<p>“It’s damned foolishness,” he repeated. “They trade with him, and let -him kick them, and then go on with that nonsense. If they refused him -copra, they would bring him to his senses quick enough.”</p> -<p>“Anyhow they hate him,” said she.</p> -<p>“Much good that is,” he replied.</p> -<h3>4</h3> -<p>Now it came about that the soul trap—turning out a dead failure, since -not a single fly went through the hole—instead of destroying Seedbaum, -fixed him on a pedestal more secure than that which he had hitherto -occupied.</p> -<p>He was indestructible, and the power which he exercised over the native -mind threatened to be as indestructible as himself.</p> -<p>However, vengeance was coming. Retribution for all the wrongs he had -committed, his swindlings, brutalities and beatings.</p> -<p>It came in this wise:</p> -<p>One afternoon Mrs. Connart, seated on the verandah and reading <i>The -Moths of the Limberlost</i>, heard the cries of a child.</p> -<p>Right in front of the house, King Seedbaum was beating a native child -for some fault or fancied disrespect towards his royal highness, cuffing -it and cuffing it, whilst the squeals of the cuffed one affronted the -heavens and the ears of all listeners.</p> -<p>Now, to touch a child or dog or cat in Mrs. Connart’s presence was to -raise a devil. White as death she rushed into the house and white as -death she rushed out again. She held her riding-whip, a Mexican quirt, -ladies’ size, but horribly efficient in energetic hands.</p> -<p>Seedbaum saw her coming, couldn’t understand, caught the first lash on -his right arm and along his back—he was wearing the pyjama suit—and his -yell brought the village flocking and Connart running from a field where -he was laying out some plants.</p> -<p>He saw the quirt lashing over Seedbaum’s shoulder, across his legs, and -across the back, for the King of Maleka was now running, running and -pursued for ten yards or so whilst the quirt got one last blow in.</p> -<p>Then he had his wife in his arms, and she was weeping.</p> -<p>“Did he touch you?” cried Connart.</p> -<p>“No—it was a child,” she gasped. “Beast! Look, he has run into his -house.”</p> -<p>The street was filled with a crowd that all through the beating had -remained spell-bound. Now it broke up into knots and small parties, all -talking together excitedly.</p> -<p>Connart, with his arm around his wife, drew her into the house.</p> -<p>She sat down on a couch and laughed and sobbed. She was half hysterical, -but not for long.</p> -<p>“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I would do it again. It’s not because -of us—but because he was beating a child.”</p> -<p>“Brute!” said Connart. “I’ll go down now and give him more. I want to -have it out with him right now.” He turned to the door. She caught him.</p> -<p>“No,” she cried, “he’s had enough. He won’t do it again. Listen, what’s -that?”</p> -<p>From away in the direction of Seedbaum’s house came a sound like the -swarming of angry bees, also shouts.</p> -<p>They rushed to the door and saw Seedbaum. Seedbaum with fifty people -round him, and every person trying to beat him at the same time.</p> -<p>“Good God,” said Connart, “you’ve taught them the trick—they’ll kill -him.”</p> -<p>“He’s got away,” cried Mrs. Connart.</p> -<p>Seedbaum, breaking from the crowd, was making up the street, the whole -village was after him; he passed the Connarts’ house and headed for the -woods where he disappeared. Then his pursuers drew off, and, rushing to -the house of Connart, swarmed at the railings, shouting and waving and -laughing, whilst Mrs. Connart interpreted.</p> -<p>“They say he’ll never come back to the village again,” said she, “for -they’ll kill him if he does; that he’ll have to live in the woods. Oh, -George! I’m frightened—what will be the end of it all?”</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>The end was a whale ship that came into the lagoon. Seedbaum, living in -the woods and supported by the generosity of the Connarts, was given -notice by the three chiefs of the island, Matua, Tamura and Ratupea by -name, that if he did not go away in the whale ship he would be killed -before the next ship arrived. And he went.</p> -<p>He was almost friendly with the Connarts, in return for their food and -protection, at the last, and as the natives would allow him to take -nothing with him, he had to leave everything behind him, including the -red cedar-wood chest, which thus came back to its rightful owner.</p> -<p>He did not even threaten the natives with governmental retribution; he -knew he was done and placed out of court by his own conduct.</p> -<p>But the thing that always remained with Connart out of this affair was -the fact that a population of active and vigorous people would still -have been down-trodden by a merciless tyrant but for a little, quiet, -calm-eyed woman, who had unconsciously and just from an uprising of her -own spirit, “shown them the trick.”</p> -<p>Spirit—after all, what else is there in the world beside it?</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='Alleluia' id='s20'>ALLELUIA</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By T. F. POWYS</p> -<p>Follow me into one of those shining days of April, when the blue in the -sky has lost its March iciness and the village of Wallbridge pauses in -its usual grey monotony to look for events.</p> -<p>Events come indeed, as they always do, for those who wait long enough -for them. The first intimation that something was going to happen -chanced to be picked up in the road by Mr. Tapper, labourer of Ford’s -Farm.</p> -<p>Mr. Tapper had once found a penny in the mud, and ever since that -eventful day the good man had kept his eye fixed upon the road when he -walked abroad.</p> -<p>Mr. Tapper handed the paper he had found when teatime came round to his -daughter Lily, remarking as he did so:</p> -<p>“’Tain’t nothink,” which merely meant, of course, that the paper wasn’t -a penny.</p> -<p>Lily—the pretty Lily—gave her head a little shake, and read at the top -of the printed sheet the word “Alleluia.”</p> -<p>It was all out then, of course, as soon as the pretty Lily had got hold -of it, all the whole merry matter of the coming of Alleluia into -Wallbridge. After he had handed in those papers at the doors—with the -exception of the ones that he wisely dropped in the road, well knowing -that anything picked up always interests—invited everyone to his -meetings. Alleluia for he must have known everyone would call him -Alleluia, began to preach and sing in a devout manner in the handsome -tent that he had set up near to his van. He was so gentle and polite and -so good at starting those emotional tunes—invented by Mr. Moody—that -Wallbridge at once praised and patronised him.</p> -<p>Alleluia had come down from Oxford, and his confiding and childlike -look, together with his silky moustache, had led him into the bypaths -and hedges and so on and on until he reached the village of Wallbridge.</p> -<p>There were, of course, troubles in even so gentle a young man’s path; -there were difficulties and doubts—little worries—so that Alleluia’s -eyes were not always without their tears.</p> -<p>The Wallbridge people were not always so loving as they should be. The -Rev. John Sutton, the vicar, disapproved of the preacher’s looks and was -even slightly contemptuous of the glory hymns. This unkindness hit the -young man hard, because, outwardly, the vicar seemed pleased with the -work that he was doing.</p> -<p>And there was Lily. Lily had to be considered even by Mr. Tapper, her -father, as something female. Mr. Tapper put her down entirely, with her -mother included, to the simple fact that he had stayed too long out one -lovely June fair day at the Stickland revels. Even that day he saw as -all Lily’s fault, feeling, truly perhaps, that the child brings her -parents together.</p> -<p>Even then Mr. Tapper was middle-aged, but that only made him blame Lily -the more. If it had not been for Lily, Mr. Tapper might have gone on -hawking saucepan lids and receiving beer in exchange for the country -matters in his tavern songs.</p> -<p>When Lily was eighteen a very important event happened to her. She -bought a new looking-glass to replace a cracked one that had always -given her face such an ugly cut down the middle. Before this new one—she -had stolen the money for it from her drunken parent’s pocket—she could -touch herself and preen herself, and wonder at a red mark on her bosom -that looked almost like a bite.</p> -<p>That must not happen again; of course it wouldn’t after Alleluia’s -preaching; young Wakely would have to take her home more gently in -future. Following the lovely hymns, it was not quite proper to be -covered and eaten and bitten by kisses all the way home.</p> -<p>“No you mustn’t, Tom.”</p> -<p>Pretty Lily said the words before her glass in order to practise them. -She used to sit quite near to the young preacher, and had got his -child’s look and his silky upper lip quite by heart. He would be always -speaking about love and about doing kind actions to one another, and -every hymn was filled with the delicious savour of subdued sin.</p> -<p>Lily was quite moved by all the excitement, but she wished to be more -careful about Tom, and so she was....</p> -<p>Alleluia had grown fond of looking upwards too, and for many nights he -had seen only one face in the sky. Alleluia was forced to allow that the -pretty face in the sky had nothing whatever to do with the hymns he had -been singing; he knew it was not God’s face, nor David’s, nor any other -heavenly person’s. But, alas, it so pleased Alleluia that he wandered -abroad in search of it sometimes, and often it was midnight before the -preacher opened his van door to go to bed.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>The excessive longing for events to happen in a village sometimes -over-reaches itself; it did, indeed, over-reach itself this time in -Wallbridge.</p> -<p>As usual, events pass in a sober grey way in the country. The dismal -sermons of all the Rev. John Suttons are nearly always of the same -dismal colour. And even the Wallbridge quarrel between old Mother Wimple -and Farmer Told had become dull coloured, too. The sun shone as best it -could, and sometimes the moon would appear, though none of these -heavenly lights proved strong enough to break the leaden colouring.</p> -<p>But the people had longed, and when the people long something happens.</p> -<p>It came in this wise. A morning dawned with a splash of red, that -splashed the grey sod, that splashed the hills and the meadows, and even -gave to Farmer Told’s white cow a red blood-stained look.</p> -<p>Her hymn-book soaked, her pretty Sunday clothes so sadly torn, her -pretty lily face rudely beaten and broken: there was quite a little pool -of blood in the chalk-pit, the grey colour lurid for once.</p> -<p>This was more than peaceful Wallbridge had wished for. This dreadful -dash of red made even the April sunshine look a little queer. It could -never be the same usual Wallbridge wind that blew upon the stalwart -forms of the inspectors and policemen who had the case in hand.</p> -<p>Alleluia had been found, almost crazed, near the chalkpit; he had been -looking for pretty Lily all night, he said, and had only found her at -dawn. There was blood upon his clothes, he had held her body in his -arms.</p> -<p>Others told so much, too. They had been seen together very often; they -had been followed, watched, and the stars needs must have blushed, so -folks said. Tom Wakely had been away that red night, so it could not -have been he who had done it.</p> -<p>Honest Mr. Tapper gave the strongest evidence, and Alleluia was hanged.</p> -<p>Perhaps this was a little hard upon Alleluia, but all men said he should -have stuck to his hymn-singing and not gone out to look for pretty -lilies at night-time. One wit even remarked that he could have sung his -hymns in the town in a cheaper fashion without a stretch of the neck at -the end of it.</p> -<p>The red splash of pretty Lily’s blood coloured some dozen or so years of -Wallbridge life, but after that time was passed the old grey began to -hang heavy again and an owl hooted.</p> -<p>The owl must have settled upon Mr. Tapper’s chimney, so near did the -sound of its hooting seem to Mr. Tapper.</p> -<p>It was midnight, two old women—one was Mrs. Tapper—were sitting by the -dying man’s side.</p> -<p>“’E do die ’ard,” Mrs. Tapper remarked in a friendly tone.</p> -<p>Mr. Tapper was thoughtful.</p> -<p>“If only he hadn’t wandered off into the lanes on that fair day in June! -He might even have been drinking beer instead of dying hard.”</p> -<p>The owl perched upon the cottage chimney hooted again. The ice upon -Ford’s pond cracked—the midnight frost was abroad.</p> -<p>Mr. Tapper spoke his last words.</p> -<p>“Our Lily, she weren’t murdered by thik young preacher,” said Mr. -Tapper.</p> -<p>“Who did kill she?” the old women whispered excitedly.</p> -<p>“’Twas I,” said Mr. Tapper, “because young Wakely never give I thik beer -’e’d promised. I did blame she for it.”</p> -<p>The owl hooted, the old women looked at one another—and Mr. Tapper’s jaw -slowly dropped.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Monkey’s Paw' id='s21'>THE MONKEY’S PAW</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By W. W. JACOBS</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>The Lady of the Barge</i>, by W. W. Jacobs. Copyright, 1902, by -Dodd, Mead and Company.</p> -<h3>1</h3> -<p>Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of -Laburnam Villa the blinds were drawn and the fire burned brightly. -Father and son were at chess, the former, who possessed ideas about the -game involving radical changes, putting his king into such sharp and -unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the white-haired -old lady knitting placidly by the fire.</p> -<p>“Hark at the wind,” said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake -after it was too late, was amiably desirous of preventing his son from -seeing it.</p> -<p>“I’m listening,” said the latter, grimly surveying the board as he -stretched out his hand. “Check.”</p> -<p>“I should hardly think that he’d come to-night,” said his father, with -his hand poised over the board.</p> -<p>“Mate,” replied the son.</p> -<p>“That’s the worst of living so far out,” bawled Mr. White, with sudden -and unlooked-for violence; “of all the beastly, slushy, out-of-the-way -places to live in, this is the worst. Pathway’s a bog, and the road’s a -torrent. I don’t know what people are thinking about. I suppose because -only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn’t matter.”</p> -<p>“Never mind, dear,” said his wife, soothingly; “perhaps you’ll win the -next one.”</p> -<p>Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance -between mother and son. The words died away on his lips, and he hid a -guilty grin in his thin grey beard.</p> -<p>“There he is,” said Herbert White, as the gate banged to loudly and -heavy footsteps came toward the door.</p> -<p>The old man rose with hospitable haste, and opening the door, was heard -condoling with the new arrival. The new arrival also condoled with -himself so that Mrs. White said, “Tut tut!” and coughed gently as her -husband entered the room, followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye -and rubicund of visage.</p> -<p>“Sergeant-Major Morris,” he said, introducing him.</p> -<p>The sergeant-major shook hands, and taking the proffered seat by the -fire, watched contentedly while his host got out whiskey and tumblers -and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.</p> -<p>At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the -little family circle regarding with eager interest this visitor from -distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke -of wild scenes and doughty deeds; of wars and plagues and strange -peoples.</p> -<p>“Twenty-one years of it,” said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son. -“When he went away he was a slip of a youth in the warehouse. Now look -at him.”</p> -<p>“He don’t look to have taken much harm,” said Mrs. White, politely.</p> -<p>“I’d like to go to India myself,” said the old man, “just to look round -a bit, you know.”</p> -<p>“Better where you are,” said the sergeant-major, shaking his head. He -put down the empty glass, and sighing softly, shook it again.</p> -<p>“I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers,” said -the old man. “What was that you started telling me the other day about a -monkey’s paw or something, Morris?”</p> -<p>“Nothing,” said the soldier, hastily. “Leastways, nothing worth -hearing.”</p> -<p>“Monkey’s paw?” said Mrs. White, curiously.</p> -<p>“Well, it’s just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps,” said the -sergeant-major, off-handedly.</p> -<p>His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly -put his empty glass to his lips and then set it down again. His host -filled it for him.</p> -<p>“To look at,” said the sergeant-major, fumbling in his pocket, “it’s -just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy.”</p> -<p>He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew -back with a grimace, but her son, taking it, examined it curiously.</p> -<p>“And what is there special about it?” inquired Mr. White as he took it -from his son, and having examined it, placed it upon the table.</p> -<p>“It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “a -very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and -that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell -on it so that three separate men could each have three wishes from it.”</p> -<p>His manner was so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their -light laughter jarred somewhat.</p> -<p>“Well, why don’t you have three, sir?” said Herbert White, cleverly.</p> -<p>The soldier regarded him in the way that middle-age is wont to regard -presumptuous youth. “I have,” he said, quietly, and his blotchy face -whitened.</p> -<p>“And did you really have the three wishes granted?” asked Mrs. White.</p> -<p>“I did,” said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his -strong teeth.</p> -<p>“And has anybody else wished?” persisted the old lady.</p> -<p>“The first man had his three wishes. Yes,” was the reply; “I don’t know -what the first two were, but the third was for death. That’s how I got -the paw.”</p> -<p>His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.</p> -<p>“If you’ve had your three wishes, it’s no good to you now, then, -Morris,” said the old man at last. “What do you keep it for?”</p> -<p>The soldier shook his head. “Fancy, I suppose,” he said, slowly. “I did -have some idea of selling it, but I don’t think I will. It has caused -enough mischief already. Besides, people won’t buy. They think it’s a -fairy tale; some of them, and those who do think anything of it want to -try it first and pay me afterward.”</p> -<p>“If you could have another three wishes,” said the old man, eyeing him -keenly, “would you have them?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know,” said the other. “I don’t know.”</p> -<p>He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb, -suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a slight cry, stooped down -and snatched it off.</p> -<p>“Better let it burn,” said the soldier, solemnly.</p> -<p>“If you don’t want it, Morris,” said the other, “give it to me.”</p> -<p>“I won’t,” said his friend doggedly. “I threw it on the fire. If you -keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Pitch it on the fire again -like a sensible man.”</p> -<p>The other shook his head and examined his new possession closely. “How -do you do it?” he inquired.</p> -<p>“Hold it up in your right hand and wish aloud,” said the sergeant-major, -“but I warn you of the consequences.”</p> -<p>“Sounds like the Arabian Nights,” said Mrs. White, as she rose and began -to set the supper. “Don’t you think you might wish for four pairs of -hands for me?”</p> -<p>Her husband drew the talisman from pocket, and then all three burst into -laughter as the sergeant-major, with a look of alarm on his face, caught -him by the arm.</p> -<p>“If you must wish,” he said gruffly, “wish for something sensible.”</p> -<p>Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned -his friend to the table. In the business of supper the talisman was -partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an enthralled -fashion to a second instalment of the soldier’s adventures in India.</p> -<p>“If the tale about the monkey’s paw is not more truthful than those he -has been telling us,” said Herbert, as the door closed behind the guest, -just in time for him to catch the last train, “we shan’t make much out -of it.”</p> -<p>“Did you give him anything for it, father?” inquired Mrs. White, -regarding her husband closely.</p> -<p>“A trifle,” said he, colouring slightly. “He didn’t want it, but I made -him take it. And he pressed me again to throw it away.”</p> -<p>“Likely,” said Herbert, with pretended horror. “Why, we’re going to be -rich, and famous and happy. Wish to be an emperor, father, to begin -with; then you can’t be henpecked.”</p> -<p>He darted round the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs. White armed with -an antimacassar.</p> -<p>Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. “I don’t -know what to wish for, and that’s a fact,” he said, slowly. “It seems to -me I’ve got all I want.”</p> -<p>“If you only cleared the house, you’d be quite happy, wouldn’t you?” -said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder. “Well, wish for two hundred -pounds then; that’ll just do it.”</p> -<p>His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the -talisman, as his son, with a solemn face, somewhat marred by a wink at -his mother, sat down at the piano and struck a few impressive chords.</p> -<p>“I wish for two hundred pounds,” said the old man distinctly.</p> -<p>A fine crash from the piano greeted the words, interrupted by a -shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son ran toward him.</p> -<p>“It moved,” he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay -on the floor. “As I wished, it twisted in my hand like a snake.”</p> -<p>“Well, I don’t see the money,” said his son as he picked it up and -placed it on the table, “and I bet I never shall.”</p> -<p>“It must have been your fancy, father,” said his wife, regarding him -anxiously.</p> -<p>He shook his head. “Never mind, though; there’s no harm done, but it -gave me a shock all the same.”</p> -<p>They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes. -Outside, the wind was higher than ever, and the old man started -nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual and -depressing settled upon all three, which lasted until the old couple -rose to retire for the night.</p> -<p>“I expect you’ll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of -your bed,” said Herbert, as he bade them good-night, “and something -horrible squatting up on top of the wardrobe watching you as you pocket -your ill-gotten gains.”</p> -<p>He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces -in it. The last face was so horrible and so simian that he gazed at it -in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh, he felt -on the table for a glass containing a little water to throw over it. His -hand grasped the monkey’s paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his -hand on his coat and went up to bed.</p> -<h3>2</h3> -<p>In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the -breakfast table he laughed at his fears. There was an air of prosaic -wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the previous night, -and the dirty, shrivelled little paw was pitched on the sideboard and -with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its virtues.</p> -<p>“I suppose all old soldiers are the same,” said Mrs. White. “The idea of -our listening to such nonsense! How could wishes be granted in these -days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you, father?”</p> -<p>“Might drop on his head from the sky,” said the frivolous Herbert.</p> -<p>“Morris said the things happened so naturally,” said his father, “that -you might if you so wished attribute it to coincidence.”</p> -<p>“Well, don’t break into the money before I come back,” said Herbert as -he rose from the table. “I’m afraid it’ll turn you into a mean, -avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you.”</p> -<p>His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the -road; and returning to the breakfast table, was very happy at the -expense of her husband’s credulity. All of which did not prevent her -from scurrying to the door at the postman’s knock, nor prevent her from -referring somewhat shortly to retired sergeant-majors of bibulous habits -when she found that the post brought a tailor’s bill.</p> -<p>“Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he -comes home,” she said, as they sat at dinner.</p> -<p>“I dare say,” said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; “but for -all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I’ll swear to.”</p> -<p>“You thought it did,” said the old lady soothingly.</p> -<p>“I say it did,” replied the other. “There was no thought about it; I had -just——What’s the matter?”</p> -<p>His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a -man outside, who, peering in an undecided fashion at the house, appeared -to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental connection with the -two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger was well dressed, and -wore a silk hat of glossy newness. Three times he paused at the gate, -and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his hand upon -it, and then with sudden resolution flung it open and walked up the -path. Mrs. White at the same moment placed her hands behind her, and -hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put that useful article -of apparel beneath the cushion of her chair.</p> -<p>She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He -gazed at her furtively, and listened in a preoccupied fashion as the old -lady apologised for the appearance of the room, and her husband’s coat, -a garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then waited as -patiently as her sex would permit, for him to broach his business, but -he was at first strangely silent.</p> -<p>“I—was asked to call,” he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece -of cotton from his trousers. “I come from ‘Maw and Meggins.’”</p> -<p>The old lady started. “Is anything the matter?” she asked, breathlessly. -“Has anything happened to Herbert? What is it? What is it?”</p> -<p>Her husband interposed. “There, there, mother,” he said, hastily. “Sit -down, and don’t jump to conclusions. You’ve not brought bad news, I’m -sure, sir;” and he eyed the other wistfully.</p> -<p>“I’m sorry——” began the visitor.</p> -<p>“Is he hurt?” demanded the mother, wildly.</p> -<p>The visitor bowed in assent. “Badly hurt,” he said, quietly, “but he is -not in any pain.”</p> -<p>“Oh, thank God!” said the old woman, clasping her hands. “Thank God for -that! Thank——”</p> -<p>She broke off suddenly as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned -upon her, and she saw the awful confirmation of her fears in the other’s -averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slow-witted -husband, laid her trembling old hand upon his. There was a long silence.</p> -<p>“He was caught in the machinery,” said the visitor at length in a low -voice.</p> -<p>“Caught in the machinery,” repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion, -“yes.”</p> -<p>He sat staring blankly out at the window, and taking his wife’s hand -between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do in their old -courting-days nearly forty years before.</p> -<p>“He was the only one left to us,” he said, turning gently to the -visitor. “It is hard.”</p> -<p>The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. “The firm -wished me to convey their sincere sympathy with you in your great loss,” -he said, without looking around. “I beg that you will understand I am -only their servant and merely obeying orders.”</p> -<p>There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring, -and her breath inaudible; on the husband’s face was a look such as his -friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.</p> -<p>“I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility,” -continued the other. “They admit no liability at all, but in -consideration of your son’s services, they wish to present you with a -certain sum as compensation.”</p> -<p>Mr. White dropped his wife’s hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a -look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips shaped the words. “How -much?”</p> -<p>“Two hundred pounds,” was the answer.</p> -<p>Unconscious of his wife’s shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out -his hands like a sightless man, and dropped, a senseless heap, to the -floor.</p> -<h3>3</h3> -<p>In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried -their dead, and came back to a house steeped in shadow and silence. It -was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realise it, and -remained in a state of expectation as though of something else to -happen—something else which was to lighten this load, too heavy for old -hearts to bear.</p> -<p>But the days passed, and expectation gave place to resignation—the -hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes miscalled, apathy. Sometimes -they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about, -and their days were long to weariness. It was about a week after that -the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and -found himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued -weeping came from the window. He raised himself in bed and listened.</p> -<p>“Come back,” he said, tenderly. “You will be cold.”</p> -<p>“It is colder for my son,” said the old woman, and wept afresh.</p> -<p>The sound of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his -eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed fitfully, and then slept until a sudden -wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.</p> -<p>“<i>The paw!</i>” she cried wildly. “The monkey’s paw!”</p> -<p>He started up in alarm. “Where? Where is it? What’s the matter?”</p> -<p>She came stumbling across the room toward him. “I want it,” she said, -quietly. “You’ve not destroyed it?”</p> -<p>“It’s in the parlour, on the bracket,” he replied, marvelling. “Why?”</p> -<p>She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.</p> -<p>“I only just thought of it,” she said, hysterically. “Why didn’t I think -of it before? Why didn’t you think of it?”</p> -<p>“Think of what?” he questioned.</p> -<p>“The other two wishes,” she replied, rapidly. “We’ve only had one.”</p> -<p>“Was not that enough?” he demanded, fiercely.</p> -<p>“No,” she cried, triumphantly; “we’ll have one more. Go down and get it -quickly, and wish our boy alive again.”</p> -<p>The man sat up in bed and flung the bed-clothes from his quaking limbs. -“Good God, you are mad!” he cried, aghast.</p> -<p>“Get it,” she panted; “get it quickly, and wish——Oh, my boy, my boy!”</p> -<p>Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. “Get back to bed,” he -said, unsteadily. “You don’t know what you are saying.”</p> -<p>“We had the first wish granted,” said the old woman, feverishly; “why -not the second?”</p> -<p>“A coincidence,” stammered the old man.</p> -<p>“Go and get it and wish,” cried his wife, quivering with excitement.</p> -<p>The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. “He has been -dead ten days, and besides he—I would not tell you else, but—I could -only recognise him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to -see then, how now?”</p> -<p>“Bring him back,” cried the old woman, and dragged him toward the door. -“Do you think I fear the child I have nursed?”</p> -<p>He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then -to the mantelpiece. The talisman was in its place, and a horrible fear -that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he -could escape from the room seized upon him, and he caught his breath as -he found that he had lost the direction of the door. His brow cold with -sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until -he found himself in the small passage with the unwholesome thing in his -hand.</p> -<p>Even his wife’s face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white -and expectant, and to his fears seemed to have an unnatural look upon -it. He was afraid of her.</p> -<p>“<i>Wish!</i>” she cried, in a strong voice.</p> -<p>“It is foolish and wicked,” he faltered.</p> -<p>“<i>Wish!</i>” repeated his wife.</p> -<p>He raised his hand. “I wish my son alive again.”</p> -<p>The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he -sank trembling into a chair as the old woman, with burning eyes, walked -to the window and raised the blind.</p> -<p>He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the -figure of the old woman peering through the window. The candle-end, -which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing -pulsating shadows on the ceiling and walls, until, with a flicker larger -than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an unspeakable sense of -relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back to his bed, and a -minute or two afterward the old woman came silently and apathetically -beside him.</p> -<p>Neither spoke, but lay silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A -stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried noisily through the wall. -The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up -his courage, he took the box of matches, and striking one, went -downstairs for a candle.</p> -<p>At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike -another; and at the same moment a knock, so quiet and stealthy as to be -scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.</p> -<p>The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood -motionless, his breath suspended until the knock was repeated. Then he -turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind -him. A third knock sounded through the house.</p> -<p>“<i>What’s that?</i>” cried the old woman, starting up.</p> -<p>“A rat,” said the old man in shaking tones—“a rat. It passed me on the -stairs.”</p> -<p>His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the -house.</p> -<p>“It’s Herbert!” she screamed. “It’s Herbert!”</p> -<p>She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by -the arm, held her tightly.</p> -<p>“What are you going to do?” he whispered hoarsely.</p> -<p>“It’s my boy; it’s Herbert!” she cried, struggling mechanically. “I -forgot it was two miles away. What are you holding me for? Let go. I -must open the door.”</p> -<p>“For God’s sake don’t let it in,” cried the old man, trembling.</p> -<p>“You’re afraid of your own son,” she cried, struggling. “Let me go. I’m -coming, Herbert; I’m coming.”</p> -<p>There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench -broke free and ran from the room. Her husband followed to the landing, -and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the -chain rattle back and the bottom bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the -socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and panting.</p> -<p>“The bolt,” she cried loudly. “Come down. I can’t reach it.”</p> -<p>But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor -in search of the paw. If he could only find it before the thing outside -got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, -and he heard the scraping of a chair as his wife put it down in the -passage against the door. He heard the creaking of the bolt as it came -slowly back and at the same moment he found the monkey’s paw, and -frantically breathed his third and last wish.</p> -<p>The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in -the house. He heard the chair drawn back, and the door opened. A cold -wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and -misery from his wife gave him courage to run down to her side, and then -to the gate beyond. The street lamp flickering opposite shone on a quiet -and deserted road.</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Creatures' id='s22'>THE CREATURES</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By WALTER DE LA MARE</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>The Riddle and Other Stories</i>, by Walter de la Mare. -Copyright, 1923, by Walter de la Mare. By permission of Alfred A. Knopf, -Inc.</p> -<p>It was the ebbing light of evening that recalled me out of my story to a -consciousness of my whereabouts. I dropped the squat little red book to -my knee and glanced out of the narrow and begrimed oblong window. We -were skirting the eastern coast of cliffs, to the very edge of which a -ploughman, stumbling along behind his two great horses, was driving the -last of his dark furrows. In a cleft far down between the rocks a cold -and idle sea was soundlessly laying its frigid garlands of foam. I -stared over the flat stretch of waters, then turned my head, and looked -with a kind of suddenness into the face of my one fellow-traveller.</p> -<p>He had entered the carriage, all but unheeded, yet not altogether -unresented, at the last country station. His features were a little -obscure in the fading daylight that hung between our four narrow walls, -but apparently his eyes had been fixed on my face for some little time.</p> -<p>He narrowed his lids at this unexpected confrontation, jerked back his -head, and cast a glance out of his mirky glass at the slip of -greenish-bright moon that was struggling into its full brilliance above -the dun, swelling uplands.</p> -<p>“It’s a queer experience, railway-travelling,” he began abruptly, in a -low, almost deprecating voice, drawing his hand across his eyes. “One is -cast into a passing privacy with a fellow-stranger and then is gone.” It -was as if he had been patiently awaiting the attention of a chosen -listener.</p> -<p>I nodded, looking at him. “That privacy, too,” he ejaculated, “all -that!” My eyes turned towards the window again: bare, thorned, black -January hedge, inhospitable salt coast, flat waste of northern water. -Our engine driver promptly shut off his steam, and we slid almost -noiselessly out of sight of sky and sea into a cutting.</p> -<p>“It’s a desolate country,” I ventured to remark.</p> -<p>“Oh, yes, ‘desolate,’” he echoed a little wearily. “But what frets me is -the way we have of arrogating to ourselves the offices of judge, jury, -and counsel all in one. As if this earth.... I never forget it—the -futility, the presumption. It <i>leads</i> nowhere. We drive in—into all this -silence, this—this, ‘forsakenness,’ this dream of a world between her -lights of day and night time. We desecrate. Consciousness! What restless -monkeys men are.” He recovered himself, swallowed his indignation with -an obvious gulp. “As if,” he continued, in more chastened tones—“as if -that other gate were not for ever ajar, into God knows what of peace and -mystery.” He stooped forward, lean, darkened, objurgatory. “Don’t we -make our world? Isn’t that our blessed, our betrayed responsibility?”</p> -<p>I nodded, and ensconced myself, like a dog in straw, in the basest of -all responses to a rare, even if eccentric, candour—caution.</p> -<p>“Well,” he continued, a little weariedly, “that’s the indictment. Small -wonder if it will need a trumpet to blare us into that last ‘Family -Prayers.’ Then perhaps a few solitaries—just a few—will creep out of -their holes and fastnesses, and draw mercy from the merciful on the -cities of the plain. The buried talent will shine none the worse for the -long, long looming of its napery spun from dream and desire.</p> -<p>“Years ago—ten, fifteen, perhaps—I chanced on the queerest specimen of -this order of the ‘talented.’ Much the same country, too. This”—he swept -his glance out towards the now invisible sea—“this is a kind of dwarf -replica of it. More naked, smoother, more sudden and precipitous, more -‘forsaken,’ moody! Alone! The trees are shorn there, as if with -monstrous shears, by the winter gales. The air’s salt. It is a country -of stones and emerald meadows, of green, meandering, aimless lanes, of -farms set in their cliffs and valleys like rough time-bedimmed jewels, -as if by some angel of humanity, wandering between dark and daybreak.</p> -<p>“I was younger then—in body: the youth of the mind is for men of a -certain age; yours, maybe, and mine. Even then, even at that, I was -sickened of crowds, of that unimaginable London—swarming wilderness of -mankind in which a poor, lost, thirsty dog from Otherwhere tastes first -the full meaning of that idle word ‘forsaken.’ ‘Forsaken by whom?’ is -the question I ask myself now. Visitors to my particular paradise were -few then—as if, my dear sir, we are not all of us visitors, visitants, -revenants, on earth, panting for time in which to tell and share our -secrets, roving in search of marks that shall prove our quest not vain, -not unprecedented, not a treachery. But let that be.</p> -<p>“I would start off morning after morning, bread and cheese in pocket, -from the bare old house I lodged in, bound for that unforeseen nowhere -for which the heart, the fantasy, aches. Lingering hot noondays would -find me stretched in a state half-comatose, yet vigilant, on the -close-flowered turf of the fields or cliffs, on the sun-baked sands and -rocks, soaking in the scene and life around me like some pilgrim -chameleon. It was in hope to lose my way that I would set out. How shall -a man find his way unless he lose it? Now and then I succeeded. That -country is large, and its land and sea marks easily cheat the stranger. -I was still of an age, you see, when my ‘small door’ was ajar, and I -planted a solid foot to keep it from shutting. But how could I know what -I was after? One just shakes the tree of life, and the rare fruits come -tumbling down, to rot for the most part in the lush grasses.</p> -<p>“What was most haunting and provocative in that far-away country was its -fleeting resemblance to the country of dream. You stand, you sit, or lie -prone on its bud-starred heights, and look down; the green, dispersed, -treeless landscape spreads beneath you, with its hollow and mounded -slopes, clustering farmstead, and scatter of village, all motionless -under the vast wash of sun and blue, like the drop-scene of some -enchanted playhouse centuries old. So, too, the visionary bird-haunted -headlands, veiled faintly in a mist of unreality above their broken -stones and the enormous saucer of the sea.</p> -<p>“You cannot guess there what you may not chance upon, or whom. Bells -clash, boom, and quarrel hollowly on the edge of darkness in those -breakers. Voices waver across the fainter winds. The birds cry in a -tongue unknown yet not unfamiliar. The sky is the hawks’ and the stars’. -<i>There</i> one is on the edge of life, of the unforeseen, whereas our -cities—are not our desiccated, jaded minds ever continually pressing and -edging further and further away from freedom, the vast unknown, the -infinite presence, picking a fool’s journey from sensual fact to fact at -the tail of that he-ass called Reason? I suggest that in that solitude -the spirit within us realises that it treads the outskirts of a region -long since called the Imagination. I assert we have strayed, and in our -blindness abandoned——”</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>My stranger paused in his frenzy, glanced out at me from his obscure -corner as if he had intended to stun, to astonish me with some violent -heresy. We puffed out slowly, laboriously from a “Halt” at which in the -gathering dark and moonshine we had for some while been at a standstill. -Never was wedding-guest more desperately at the mercy of ancient -mariner.</p> -<p>“Well, one day,” he went on, lifting his voice a little to master the -resounding heart-beats of our steam-engine—“one late afternoon, in my -goalless wanderings, I had climbed to the summit of a steep grass-grown -cart-track, winding up dustily between dense, untended hedges. Even then -I might have missed the house to which it led, for, hair-pin fashion, -the track here abruptly turned back on itself, and only a far fainter -footpath led on over the hill-crest. I might, I say, have missed the -house and—and its inmates, if I had not heard the musical sound of what -seemed like the twangling of a harp. This thin-drawn, sweet, tuneless -warbling welled over the close green grass of the height as if out of -space. Truth cannot say whether it was of that air or of my own fantasy. -Nor did I ever discover what instrument, whether of man or Ariel, had -released a strain so pure and yet so bodiless.</p> -<p>“I pushed on and found myself in command of a gorse-strewn height, a -stretch of country that lay a few hundred paces across the steep and -sudden valley in between. In a V-shaped entry to the left, and sunwards, -lay an azure and lazy tongue of the sea. And as my eye slid softly -thence and upwards and along the sharp, green horizon line against the -glass-clear turquoise of space, it caught the flinty glitter of a square -chimney. I pushed on, and presently found myself at the gate of a -farmyard.</p> -<p>“There was but one straw-mow upon its staddles. A few fowls were sunning -themselves in their dust-baths. White and pied doves preened and cooed -on the roof of an outbuilding as golden with its lichens as if the -western sun had scattered its dust for centuries upon the large slate -slabs. Just that life and the whispering of the wind: nothing more. Yet -even at one swift glimpse I seemed to have trespassed upon a peace that -had endured for ages; to have crossed the viewless border that divides -time from eternity. I leaned, resting, over the gate, and could have -remained there for hours, lapsing ever more profoundly into the blessed -quietude that had stolen over my thoughts.</p> -<p>“A bent-up woman appeared at the dark entry of a stone shed opposite to -me, and, shading her eyes, paused in prolonged scrutiny of the stranger. -At that I entered the gate and, explaining that I had lost my way and -was tired and thirsty, asked for some milk. She made no reply, but after -peering up at me, with something between suspicion and apprehension on -her weather-beaten old face, led me towards the house which lay to the -left on the slope of the valley, hidden from me till then by plumy -bushes of tamarisk.</p> -<p>“It was a low grave house, grey-chimneyed, its stone walls traversed by -a deep shadow cast by the declining sun, its dark windows rounded and -uncurtained, its door wide open to the porch. She entered the house, and -I paused upon the threshold. A deep unmoving quiet lay within, like that -of water in a cave renewed by the tide. Above a table hung a wreath of -wild flowers. To the right was a heavy oak settle upon the flags. A beam -of sunlight pierced the air of the staircase from an upper window.</p> -<p>“Presently a dark, long-faced, gaunt man appeared from within, -contemplating me, as he advanced, out of eyes that seemed not so much to -fix the intruder as to encircle his image, as the sea contains the -distant speck of a ship on its wide, blue bosom of water. They might -have been the eyes of the blind; the windows of a house in dream to -which the inmate must make something of a pilgrimage to look out upon -actuality. Then he smiled, and the long, dark features, melancholy yet -serene, took light upon them, as might a bluff of rock beneath a thin -passing wash of sunshine. With a gesture he welcomed me into the large -dark-flagged kitchen, cool as a cellar, airy as a belfry, its sweet air -traversed by a long oblong of light out of the west.</p> -<p>“The wide shelves of the painted dresser were laden with crockery. A -wreath of freshly-gathered flowers hung over the chimney-piece. As we -entered, a twittering cloud of small birds, robins, hedge-sparrows, -chaffinches fluttered up a few inches from floor and sill and -window-seat, and once more, with tiny starry-dark eyes observing me, -soundlessly alighted. I could hear the infinitesimal <i>tic-tac</i> of their -tiny claws upon the slate. My gaze drifted out of the window into the -garden beyond, a cavern of clearer crystal and colour than that which -astounded the eyes of young Aladdin.</p> -<p>“Apart from the twisted garland of wild flowers, the shining metal of -range and copper candlestick, and the bright-scoured crockery, there was -no adornment in the room except a rough frame, hanging from a nail in -the wall, and enclosing what appeared to be a faint patterned fragment -of blue silk or fine linen. The chairs and table were old and heavy. A -low, light warbling, an occasional <i>skirr</i> of wing, a haze-like drone of -bee and fly—these were the only sounds that edged a quiet intensified in -its profundity by the remote stirrings of the sea.</p> -<p>“The house was stilled as by a charm, yet thought within me asked no -questions; speculation was asleep in its kennel. I sat down to the milk -and bread, the honey and fruit which the old woman laid out upon the -table, and her master seated himself opposite to me, now in a low -sibilant whisper—a tongue which they seemed to understand—addressing -himself to the birds, and now, as if with an effort, raising those -strange grey-green eyes of his to bestow a quiet remark upon me. He -asked, rather in courtesy than with any active interest, a few -questions, referring to the world, its business and transports—<i>our</i> -beautiful world—as an astronomer in the small hours might murmur a few -words to the chance-sent guest of his solitude concerning the secrets of -Uranus or Saturn. There is another, an inexplorable side to the moon. -Yet he said enough for me to gather that he, too, was of that small -tribe of the aloof and wild to which our cracked old word ‘forsaken’ -might be applied, hermits, lamas, clay-matted fakirs, and such-like; the -snowy birds that play and cry amid mid-oceanic surges; the living of an -oasis of the wilderness; which share a reality only distantly dreamed of -by the time-driven thought-corroded congregations of man.</p> -<p>“Yet so narrow and hazardous I somehow realised was the brink of -fellow-being (shall I call it?) which we shared, he and I, that again -and again fantasy within me seemed to hover over that precipice Night -knows as fear. It was he, it seemed, with that still embracive -contemplation of his, with that far-away yet reassuring smile, that kept -my poise, my balance. ‘No,’ some voice within him seemed to utter, ‘you -are safe; the bounds are fixed; though hallucination chaunt its decoy, -you shall not irretrievably pass over. Eat and drink, and presently -return to life.’ And I listened, and, like that of a drowsy child in its -cradle, my consciousness sank deeper and deeper, stilled, pacified into -the dream which, as it seemed, this soundless house of stone now reared -its walls.</p> -<p>“I had all but finished my meal when I heard footsteps approaching on -the flags without. The murmur of other voices, distinguishably shrill -yet guttural even at a distance, and in spite of the dense stones and -beams of the house which had blunted their timbre, had already reached -me. Now the feet halted. I turned my head—cautiously, even perhaps -apprehensively—and confronted two figures in the doorway.</p> -<p>“I cannot now guess the age of my entertainer. These children—for -children they were in face and gesture and effect, though as to form and -stature apparently in their last teens—these children were far more -problematical. I say ‘form and stature,’ yet obviously they were -dwarfish. Their heads were sunken between their shoulders, their hair -thick, their eyes disconcertingly deep-set. They were ungainly; their -features peculiarly irregular, as if two races from the ends of the -earth had in them intermingled their blood and strangeness; as if, -rather animal and angel had connived in their creation.</p> -<p>“But if some inward light lay on the still eyes, on the gaunt, -sorrowful, quixotic countenance that now was fully and intensely bent on -mine, emphatically that light was theirs also. He spoke to them; they -answered—in English, my own language, without a doubt: but an English -slurred, broken, and unintelligible to me, yet clear as a bell, -haunting, penetrating, pining as voice of nix or siren. My ears drank in -the sound as an Arab parched with desert sand falls on his dried belly -and gulps in mouthfuls of crystal water. The birds hopped nearer as if -beneath the rod of an enchanter. A sweet continuous clamour arose from -their small throats. The exquisite colours of plume and bosom burned, -greened, melted in the level sun-ray, in the darker air beyond.</p> -<p>“A kind of mournful gaiety, a lamentable felicity, such as rings in the -cadences of an old folk-song, welled into my heart. I was come back to -the borders of Eden, bowed and outwearied, gazing from out of dream into -dream, homesick, ‘forsaken.’</p> -<p>“Well, years have gone by,” muttered my fellow-traveller deprecatingly, -“but I have not forgotten that Eden’s primeval trees and shade.</p> -<p>“They led me out, these bizarre companions, a he and a she, if I may put -it as crudely as my apprehension of them put it to me then. Through a -broad door they conducted me—if one who leads may be said to be -conducted—into their garden. Garden! A full mile long, between -undiscerned walls, it sloped and narrowed towards a sea at whose dark -unfoamed blue, even at this distance, my eyes dazzled. Yet how can one -call that a garden which reveals no ghost of a sign of human -arrangement, of human slavery, of spade or hoe?</p> -<p>“Great boulders shouldered up, tessellated, embossed, powdered with a -thousand various mosses and lichens, between a flowering greenery of -weeds. Wind-stunted, clear-emerald, lichen-tufted trees smoothed and -crisped the inflowing airs of the ocean with their leaves and spines, -sibilating a thin scarce-audible music. Scanty, rank, and uncultivated -fruits hung close their vivid-coloured cheeks to the gnarled branches. -It was the harbourage of birds, the small embowering parlour of their -house of life, under an evening sky, pure and lustrous as a water-drop. -It cried, ‘Hospital’ to the wanderers of the universe.</p> -<p>“As I look back in ever-thinning, nebulous remembrance on my two -companions, hear their voices gutturally sweet and shrill, catch again -their being, so to speak, I realise that there was a kind of Orientalism -in their effect. Their instant courtesy was not Western, the smiles that -greeted me, whenever I turned my head to look back at them, were -infinitely friendly, yet infinitely remote. So ungainly, so far from our -notions of beauty and symmetry were their bodies and faces, those heads -thrust heavily between their shoulders, their disproportioned yet -graceful arms and hands, that the children in some of our English -villages might be moved to stone them, while their elders looked on and -laughed.</p> -<p>“Dusk was drawing near; soon night would come. The colours of the -sunset, sucking its extremest dye from every leaf and blade and petal, -touched my consciousness even then with a vague fleeting alarm.</p> -<p>“I remember I asked these strange and happy beings, repeating my -question twice or thrice, as we neared the surfy entry of the valley -upon whose sands a tiny stream emptied its fresh water—I asked them if -it was they who had planted this multitude of flowers, many of a kind -utterly unknown to me and alien to a country inexhaustibly rich. ‘We -wait; we wait!’ I think they cried. And it was as if their cry awoke -echo from the green-walled valleys of the mind into which I had strayed. -Shall I confess that tears came into my eyes as I gazed hungrily around -me on the harvest of their patience?</p> -<p>“Never was actuality so close to dream. It was not only an unknown -country, slipped in between these placid hills, on which I had chanced -in my ramblings. I had entered for a few brief moments a strange region -of consciousness. I was treading, thus accompanied, amid a world of -welcoming and fearless life—oh, friendly to me!—the paths of man’s -imagination, the kingdom from which thought and curiosity, vexed -scrutiny and lust—a lust it may be for nothing more impious than the -actual—had prehistorically proved the insensate means of his banishment. -‘Reality,’ ‘Consciousness’: had he for ‘the time being’ unwittingly, -unhappily missed his way? Would he be led back at length to that garden -wherein cockatrice and basilisk bask, harmlessly, at peace?</p> -<p>“I speculate now. In that queer, yes, and possibly sinister company, -sinister only because it was alien to me, I did not speculate. In their -garden, the familiar was become the strange—‘the strange’ that lurks in -the inmost heart, unburdens its riches in trance, flings its light and -gilding upon love, gives heavenly savour to the intemperate bowl of -passion, and is the secret of our incommunicable pity. What is yet -queerer, these things were evidently glad of my company. They stumped -after me (as might yellow men after some Occidental quadruped never -before seen) in merry collusion of nods and wreathed smiles at this -perhaps unprecedented intrusion.</p> -<p>“I stood for a moment looking out over the placid surface of the sea. A -ship in sail hung phantom-like on the horizon. I pined to call my -discovery to its seamen. The tide gushed, broke, spent itself on the -bare boulders, I was suddenly cold and alone, and gladly turned back -into the garden, my companions instinctively separating to let me pass -between them. I breathed in the rare, almost exotic heat, the tenuous, -honeyed, almond-laden air of its flowers and birds—gull, sheldrake, -plover, wagtail, finch, robin, which as I half-angrily, half-sadly -realised fluttered up in momentary dismay only at <i>my</i> presence—the -embodied spectre of their enemy, man. Man? Then who were these?...</p> -<p>“I lost again a way lost early that morning, as I trudged inland at -night. The dark came, warm and starry. I was dejected and exhausted -beyond words. That night I slept in a barn and was awakened soon after -daybreak by the crowing of cocks. I went out, dazed and blinking into -the sunlight, bathed face and hands in a brook near by, and came to a -village before a soul was stirring. So I sat under a thrift-cushioned, -thorn-crowned wall in a meadow, and once more drowsed off and fell -asleep. When again I awoke, it was ten o’clock. The church clock in its -tower knelled out the strokes, and I went into an inn for food.</p> -<p>“A corpulent, blonde woman, kindly and hospitable, with a face -comfortably resembling her own sow’s, that yuffed and nosed in at the -open door as I sat on my stool, served me with what I called for. I -described—not without some vanishing shame, as if it were a treachery—my -farm, its whereabouts.</p> -<p>“Her small blue eyes ‘pigged’ at me with a fleeting expression which I -failed to translate. The name of the farm, it appeared, was Trevarras. -‘And did you see any of the Creatures?’ she asked me in a voice not -entirely her own. ‘The Creatures’? I sat back for an instant and stared -at her; then realised that Creature was the name of my host, and Maria -and Christus (though here her dialect may have deceived me) the names of -my two gardeners. She spun an absurd story, so far as I could tack it -together and make it coherent. Superstitious stuff about this man who -had wandered in upon the shocked and curious inhabitants of the district -and made his home at Trevarras—a stranger and pilgrim, a ‘foreigner,’ it -seemed, of few words, dubious manners, and both uninformative.</p> -<p>“Then there was something (she placed her two fat hands, one of them -wedding-ringed, on the zinc of the bar-counter, and peered over at me, -as if I were a delectable ‘wash’), then there was something about a -woman ‘from the sea.’ In a ‘blue gown,’ and either dumb, inarticulate, -or mistress of only a foreign tongue. She must have lived in sin, -moreover, those pig’s eyes seemed to yearn, since the children were -‘simple,’ ‘naturals’—as God intends in such matters. It was useless. -One’s stomach may sometimes reject the cold sanative aerated water of -‘the next morning,’ and my ridiculous intoxication had left me dry but -not yet quite sober.</p> -<p>“Anyhow, this she told me, that my blue woman, as fair as flax, had died -and was buried in the neighbouring churchyard (the nearest to, though -miles distant from Trevarras). She repeatedly assured me, as if I might -otherwise doubt so sophisticated a fact, that I should find her grave -there, her ‘stone.’</p> -<p>“So indeed I did—far away from the elect, and in a shade-ridden -north-west corner of the sleepy, cropless acre: a slab, scarcely -rounded, of granite, with but a name bitten out of the dark, rough -surface, ‘<i>Femina Creature</i>.’”</p> -<div class='section'></div> -<h2 title='The Taipan' id='s23'>THE TAIPAN</h2> -<p class='tac mb1em'>By W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM</p> -<p class='credit'>From <i>On a Chinese Screen</i>, by W. Somerset Maugham. Copyright, 1922, by George H. Doran Company.</p> -<p>No one knew better than he that he was an important person. He was -number one in not the least important branch of the most important -English firm in China. He had worked his way up through solid ability, -and he looked back with a faint smile at the callow clerk who had come -out to China thirty years before. When he remembered the modest home he -had come from, a little red house in a long row of little red houses, in -Barnes, a suburb which, aiming desperately at the genteel, achieves only -a sordid melancholy, and compared it with the magnificent stone mansion, -with its wide verandahs and spacious rooms, which was at once the office -of the company and his own residence, he chuckled with satisfaction. He -had come a long way since then. He thought of the high tea to which he -sat down when he came home from school (he was at St. Paul’s), with his -father and mother and his two sisters, a slice of cold meat, a great -deal of bread and butter and plenty of milk in his tea, everybody -helping himself, and then he thought of the state in which now he ate -his evening meal. He always dressed, and whether he was alone or not he -expected the three boys to wait at table. His number one boy knew -exactly what he liked, and he never had to bother himself with the -details of housekeeping; but he always had a set dinner with soup and -fish, entree, roast, sweet and savoury, so that if he wanted to ask -anyone in at the last moment he could. He liked his food, and he did not -see why when he was alone he should have less good a dinner than when he -had a guest.</p> -<p>He had indeed gone far. That was why he did not care to go home now; he -had not been to England for ten years, and he took his leave in Japan or -Vancouver where he was sure of meeting old friends from the China coast. -He knew no one at home. His sisters had married in their own station, -their husbands were clerks and their sons were clerks; there was nothing -between him and them; they bored him. He satisfied the claims of -relationship by sending them every Christmas a piece of fine silk, some -elaborate embroidery, or a case of tea. He was not a mean man, and as -long as his mother lived he had made her an allowance. But when the time -came for him to retire he had no intention of going back to England, he -had seen too many men do that and he knew how often it was a failure; he -meant to take a house near the race-course in Shanghai: what with bridge -and his ponies and gold he expected to get through the rest of his life -very comfortably. But he had a good many years before he need think of -retiring. In another five or six Higgins would be going home, and then -he would take charge of the head office in Shanghai. Meanwhile he was -very happy where he was; he could save money, which you couldn’t do in -Shanghai, and have a good time into the bargain. This place had another -advantage over Shanghai: he was the most prominent man in the community -and what he said went. Even the consul took care to keep on the right -side of him. Once a consul and he had been at loggerheads, and it was -not he who had gone to the wall. The taipan thrust out his jaw -pugnaciously as he thought of the incident.</p> -<p>But he smiled, for he felt in an excellent humour. He was walking back -to his office from a capital luncheon at the Hong-Kong and Shanghai -Bank. They did you very well there. The food was first rate and there -was plenty of liquor. He had started with a couple of cocktails, then he -had had some excellent sauterne, and he had finished up with two glasses -of port and some fine old brandy. He felt good. And when he left he did -a thing that was rare with him: he walked. His bearers with his chair -kept a few paces behind him in case he felt inclined to slip into it, -but he enjoyed stretching his legs. He did not get enough exercise these -days. Now that he was too heavy to ride, it was difficult to get -exercise. But if he was too heavy to ride he could still keep ponies, -and as he strolled along in the balmy air he thought of the spring -meeting. He had a couple of griffins that he had hopes of and one of the -lads in his office had turned out a fine jockey (he must see they didn’t -sneak him away, old Higgins in Shanghai would give a pot of money to get -him over there) and he ought to pull off two or three races. He -flattered himself that he had the finest stable in the city. He pouted -his broad chest like a pigeon. It was a beautiful day, and it was good -to be alive.</p> -<p>He paused as he came to the cemetery. It stood there, neat and orderly, -as an evident sign of the community’s opulence. He never passed the -cemetery without a little glow of pride. He was pleased to be an -Englishman. For the cemetery stood in a place, valueless when it was -chosen, which with the increase of the city’s affluence was now worth a -great deal of money. It had been suggested that the graves should be -moved to another spot and the land sold for building, but the feeling of -the community was against it. It gave the taipan a sense of satisfaction -to think that their dead rested on the most valuable site on the island. -It showed that there were things they cared for more than money. Money -be blowed! When it came to “the things that mattered” (this was a -favourite phrase with the taipan), well, one remembered that money -wasn’t everything.</p> -<p>And now he thought he would take a stroll through. He looked at the -graves. They were neatly kept, and the pathways were free from weeds. -There was a look of prosperity. And as he sauntered along he read the -names on the tombstones. Here were three side by side; the captain, the -first mate, and the second mate of the barque <i>Mary Baxter</i>, who had all -perished together in the typhoon of 1908. He remembered it well. There -was a little group of two missionaries, their wives and children, who -had been massacred during the Boxer troubles. Shocking thing that had -been! Not that he took much stock in missionaries; but, hang it all, one -couldn’t have these damned Chinese massacring them. Then he came to a -cross with a name on it he knew. Good chap, Edward Mulock, but he -couldn’t stand his liquor, drank himself to death, poor devil, at -twenty-five: the taipan had known a lot of them do that; there were -several more neat crosses with a man’s name on them and the age, -twenty-five, twenty-six, or twenty-seven; it was always the same story; -they had come out to China: they had never seen so much money before, -they were good fellows, and they wanted to drink with the rest: they -couldn’t stand it, and there they were in the cemetery. You had to have -a strong head and a fine constitution to drink drink for drink on the -China coast. Of course it was very sad, but the taipan could hardly help -a smile when he thought how many of those young fellows he had drunk -underground. And there was a death that had been useful, a fellow in his -own firm, senior to him and a clever chap too: if that fellow had lived -he might not have been taipan now. Truly the ways of fate were -inscrutable. Ah, and here was little Mrs. Turner, Violet Turner, she had -been a pretty little thing, he had had quite an affair with her; he had -been devilish cut up when she died. He looked at her age on the -tombstone. She’d be no chicken if she were alive now. And as he thought -of all those dead people, a sense of satisfaction spread through him. He -had beaten them all. They were dead, and he was alive, and by George -he’d scored them off. His eyes collected in one picture all those -crowded graves and he smiled scornfully. He very nearly rubbed his -hands.</p> -<p>“No one ever thought I was a fool,” he muttered.</p> -<p>He had a feeling of good-natured contempt for the gibbering dead. Then, -as he strolled along, he came suddenly upon two coolies digging a grave. -He was astonished, for he had not heard that anyone in the community was -dead.</p> -<p>“Who the devil’s that for?” he said aloud.</p> -<p>The coolies did not even look at him, they went on with their work, -standing in the grave, deep down, and they shovelled up heavy clods of -earth. Though he had been so long in China he knew no Chinese, in his -day it was not thought necessary to learn the damned language, and he -asked the coolies in English whose grave they were digging. They did not -understand. They answered him in Chinese and he cursed them for ignorant -fools. He knew that Mrs. Broome’s child was ailing, and it might have -died, but he would certainly have heard of it, and besides that wasn’t a -child’s grave, it was a man’s and a big man’s too. It was uncanny. He -wished he hadn’t gone into that cemetery; he hurried out and stepped -into his chair. His good humour had all gone and there was an uneasy -frown on his face. The moment he got back to his office he called to his -number two:</p> -<p>“I say, Peters, who’s dead, d’you know?”</p> -<p>But Peters knew nothing. The taipan was puzzled. He called one of the -native clerks and sent him to the cemetery to ask the coolies. He began -to sign his letters. The clerk came back and said the coolies had gone -and there was no one to ask. The taipan began to feel vaguely annoyed: -he did not like things to happen of which he knew nothing. His own boy -would know; his boy always knew everything, and he sent for him; but the -boy had heard of no death in the community.</p> -<p>“I knew no one was dead,” said the taipan irritably. “But what’s the -grave for?”</p> -<p>He told the boy to go to the overseer of the cemetery and find out what -the devil he had dug a grave for when no one was dead.</p> -<p>“Let me have a whisky and soda before you go,” he added, as the boy was -leaving the room.</p> -<p>He did not know why the sight of the grave had made him uncomfortable. -But he tried to put it out of his mind. He felt better when he had drunk -the whisky, and he finished his work. He went upstairs and turned over -the pages of <i>Punch</i>. In a few minutes he would go to the club and play -a rubber or two of bridge before dinner. But it would ease his mind to -hear what his boy had to say, and he waited for his return. In a little -while the boy came back, and he brought the overseer with him.</p> -<p>“What are you having a grave dug for?” he asked the overseer point -blank. “Nobody’s dead.”</p> -<p>“I no dig glave,” said the man.</p> -<p>“What the devil do you mean by that? There were two coolies digging a -grave this afternoon.”</p> -<p>The two Chinese looked at one another. Then the boy said they had been -to the cemetery together. There was no new grave there.</p> -<p>The taipan only just stopped himself from speaking.</p> -<p>“But damn it all, I saw it myself,” were the words on the tip of his -tongue.</p> -<p>But he did not say them. He grew very red as he choked them down. The -two Chinese looked at him with their steady eyes. For a moment his -breath failed him.</p> -<p>“All right. Get out,” he gasped.</p> -<p>But as soon as they were gone he shouted for the boy again, and when he -came, maddeningly impassive, he told him to bring some whisky. He rubbed -his sweating face with a handkerchief. His hand trembled when he lifted -the glass to his lips. They could say what they liked, but he had seen -the grave. Why, he could hear still the dull thud as the coolies threw -the spadefuls of earth on the ground above them. What did it mean? He -could feel his heart beating. He felt strangely ill at ease. But he -pulled himself together. It was all nonsense. If there was no grave -there it must have been an hallucination. The best thing he could do was -to go to the club, and if he ran across the doctor, he would ask him to -give him a look over.</p> -<p>Everyone in the club looked just the same as ever. He did not know why -he should have expected them to look different. It was a comfort. These -men, living for many years with one another, lives that were -methodically regulated, had acquired a number of little -idiosyncrasies—one of them hummed incessantly while he played bridge, -another insisted on drinking beer through a straw—and these tricks which -had so often irritated the taipan now gave him a sense of security. He -needed it, for he could not get out of his head that strange sight he -had seen; he played bridge very badly; his partner was censorious, and -the taipan lost his temper. He thought the men were looking at him -oddly. He wondered what they saw in him that was unaccustomed.</p> -<p>Suddenly he felt he could not bear to stay in the club any longer. As he -went out he saw the doctor reading <i>The Times</i> in the reading-room, but -he could not bring himself to speak to him. He wanted to see for himself -whether that grave was really there, and, stepping into his chair he -told his bearers to take him to the cemetery. You couldn’t have an -hallucination twice, could you? And besides, he would take the overseer -in with him, and if the grave was not there, he wouldn’t see it, and if -it was he’d give the overseer the soundest thrashing he’d ever had. But -the overseer was nowhere to be found. He had gone out and taken the keys -with him. When the taipan found he could not get into the cemetery, he -felt suddenly exhausted. He got back into his chair and told his bearers -to take him home. He would lie down for half an hour before dinner. He -was tired out. That was it. He had heard that people had hallucinations -when they were tired. When his boy came in to put out his clothes for -dinner, it was only by an effort of will that he got up. He had a strong -inclination not to dress that evening, but he resisted it: he made it a -rule to dress, he had dressed every evening for twenty years, and it -would never do to break his rule. But he ordered a bottle of champagne -with his dinner, and that made him feel more comfortable. Afterwards he -told the boy to bring him the best brandy. When he had drunk a couple of -glasses of this he felt himself again. Hallucinations be damned! He went -to the billiard room and practised a few difficult shots. There could -not be much the matter with him when his eye was so sure. When he went -to bed he sank immediately into a sound sleep.</p> -<p>But suddenly he awoke. He had dreamed of that open grave and the coolies -digging leisurely. He was sure he had seen them. It was absurd to say it -was an hallucination when he had seen them with his own eyes. Then he -heard the rattle of the night watchman going his rounds. It broke upon -the stillness of the night so harshly that it made him jump out of his -skin. And then terror seized him. He felt a horror of the winding -multitudinous streets of the Chinese city, and there was something -ghastly and terrible in the convoluted roofs of the temples with their -devils grimacing and tortured. He loathed the smells that assaulted his -nostrils. And the people. Those myriads of blue-clad coolies, and the -beggars in their filthy rags, and the merchants and the magistrates, -sleek, smiling, and inscrutable, in their long black gowns. They seemed -to press upon him with menace. He hated the country. China! Why had he -ever come? He was panic-stricken now. He must get out. He would not stay -another year, another month. What did he care about Shanghai?</p> -<p>“Oh, my God!” he cried, “if I were only safely back in England!”</p> -<p>He wanted to go home. If he had to die, he wanted to die in England. He -could not bear to be buried among all these yellow men, with their -slanting eyes and their grinning faces. He wanted to be buried at home, -not in that grave he had seen that day. He could never rest there. -Never. What did it matter what people thought? Let them think what they -liked. The only thing that mattered was to get away while he had the -chance.</p> -<p>He got out of bed and wrote to the head of the firm and said he had -discovered he was dangerously ill. He must be replaced. He could not -stay longer than was absolutely necessary. He must go home at once.</p> -<p>They found the letter in the morning clenched in the taipan’s hand. He -had slipped down between the desk and the chair. He was stone dead.</p> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;'> -<div style='margin-top:1em;'>THE END</div> -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and -Three Authors, by Various - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY-THREE STORIES, TWENTY-THREE AUTHORS *** - -***** This file should be named 62347-h.htm or 62347-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/3/4/62347/ - -Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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