SLOT The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books ‘ are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library .4mry -~ 1 ry Sti he ge FUL shh x CD UU All RAL MAY < * panspeisnet Sit LIEN ra DUE 3:!1% Bs} | _§ FEB 19 1965 MAR a Rap. ul | &6 MAR 24 i986 L161— 0-1096 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW AND OTHER TALES BY RUDYARD KIPLING AUTHOR OF “PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS,” “SOLDIERS THREE,” “MINE OWN PEOPLE,’’ ETC,, ETC. NEW YORK A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER 2 All that the fee is certain of is, that one man insisted ape dying because he believed op a . wonderful he and ek to it, or visited a very _ strange place; while the third man was s indubitably se you must take on trust ; as I did. oR RUDYARD KIPLING. ie i CONTENTS. PAGE PENG PEON LOLs TICKSHAW 4 s'c.s cx eeibiae te ove She's bees mourns us 1 The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes.............+... Meee ba) ene Man WiNO2VW OUld DG RING cit ai ating ad's s veeioieie seen ees 69 My own True Ghost Story..... BOING a Denis rece sa. ee ORE 123 aS MOS bY GG ING ray cy vee eek e ss sages Ot See 136 Wee Willie Winkie.............. AeeR eee ER Lewy Dans Cues 152 MBH Tat Io AOK SHACED) + one % veel cle Sot bee’ Ue 'g. wae’ a has waa on 168 aie Macness-of..Private Ortheris . 35.03. sss oss ce pe ole ben cce's 209 eee SLOly oi a Ubammad: WIN roc ieee ea oa ce ene beste 221 On- the streneth of a Likenesas eas. ives cect vereens as 226 Wressiey ofthe Foreton: OMG... iia occ ted cieies ohele cos en's 234 ee WV ret MOUGITL A ect we a wna t's ce Suck kn lak eke ceases 242 PO DEAM LOG: T OTe ROLOLONCG, She vines Gerais sas dG cut bee ice a sigs 249 ene Drama of the Bore and Att. o. 0. cys ccc auis Hels cece es sacs 261 A Wayside Comedy........ Va eeces EE ean poate »» 309 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. May no ill dreams disturb my rest, Nor Powers of Darkness me molest. Evening Hymn. Ons of the few advantages that India has over England is a great Knowability. After five years’ service a man is directly or indirectly acquainted with the two or three hundred Civilians in his Province, all the Messes of ten or twelve Regiments and Batteries, and some fifteen hundred other people of the non-official caste. In ten years his knowledge should be doubled, and at the end of twenty he knows, or knows searing about, every Englishman in the Empire, and may travel any- : where and everywhere without paying hotel-bills. - Globe-trotters who expect entertainment as a right have, even within my memory, blunted this -open-heartedness, but none the less to-day, if you belong to the Inner Circle and are neither a Bear nor a black Sheep, all houses are open to you, and our small world is very, very kind and helpful. Rickett of Kamartha stayed with Polder of Ku- maon some fifteen years ago. He meant to stay two nights, but was knocked down by rheumatic THE PHANTOM ‘RICKSHAW. fever, and for six weeks disorganized Polder’s es- tablishment, stopped Polder’s work, and nearly died — in Polder’s bedroom. Polder behaves as though he ~ had been placed under eternal obligation by Rickett, © and yearly sends the little Ricketts a box of presents — and toys. It is the same everywhere. The men who do not take the trouble to conceal from you — their opinion that you are an incompetent ass, and the women who blacken your character and misun- derstand your wife’s amusements, will work them- selves to the bone in your behalf if you fall sick Or: << into serious trouble. yee Heatherlegh, the Doctor, kept, in addition to He is regular practise, a hospital on his private account— an arrangement of loose boxes for Incurables, his : friend called it—but it was really a sort of fittmg- — up shed for craft that had been damaged by stress 2 of weather. The weather in India is often sultry, : and since the tale of bricks is always a fixed sage e tity, and the only liberty allowed is permission to — work overtime and get no thanks, men occasionally — break down and become as mixed as the Bee” in this sentence. ae Heatherlegh is the dearest doctor that ever > was,” and his invariable prescription to all his patienhe: : “Lie low, go slow, and keep cool.”’? He says that more men are killed by overwork than the impor- tance of this world justifies. He maintains that overwork slew Pansay, who died under his hands about three years ago. He has, of course, the right to speak authoritatively, and he laughs at my theory ton THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. ‘3 that there was a crack in Pansay’s head and a little bit of the Dark World came through and pressed him to death. ‘ Pansay went off the handle,” says -Heatherlegh, “ after the stimulus of long leave at Home. He may or he may not have behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith-Wessington. My notion is that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & O. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him, poor devil. Write him off to the System—one man to take the work of two and a half men.” | I do not believe this. I used to sit up with Pan- say sometimes when Heatherlegh was called out to patients, and I happened to be within claim. The man would make me most unhappy by describing in a low, even voice, the procession that was always = passing at the bottom of his bed. He had a sick man’s command of language. When he recovered I suggested that he should write out the whole affair from beginning to end, knowing that ink might assist him to ease. his mind. When little boys have learned a new bad word they are never happy till they have chalked it up on a door. And this also is Literature. He was in a high fever while he was writing, and the blood-and-thunder Magazine diction he adopted dis: vowing at the last fiat he ayes ee le OS his manuscript before he died, and this version of the affair, dated 1885 :- aS nor the rated gun can break, and hie | far beyond — that which any — homeward steamer can give me. weary earth was ever sO ; tormented as. i. Pens 2 now as a condemned criminal Sak least attention. That it- will ever Me ve dence I utterly disbelieve. Two months ago she “have scouted as mad or drunk the man. ee tell me the like. Two months ago I happiest man in India. To-day, from ‘Pes - the sea, there is no one more wretched. and I are the only two who know, thi a THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. — 5 are all slightly affected; giving rise to my frequent and persistent “delusions.” Delusions, indeed! | call him a fool; but he attends me still with the same unwearied smile, the same bland professional manner, the same neatly trimmed red whiskers, till I begin to suspect that 1 am an ungrateful, evil- tempered invalid. But you shall judge for your- selves. Three years ago it was my fortune—my great misfortune—to sail from Gravesend to Bom- ‘bay, on return from long leave, with one Agnes Keith-Wessington, wife of an officer on the Bombay side. It does not in the least concern you to know what manner of woman she was. Be content with the knowledge that, ere the voyage had ended, both she and I were desperately and unreasoningly in love with one another. Heaven knows that I can make the admission@now without one particle of vanity. In matters of this sort there is always one - who gives and another who accepts. From the So first day of our ill-omened attachment, I was con- scious that Agnes’s passion was a stronger, a more dominant, and—if I may use the expression—a purer sentiment than mine. Whether she recognized the fact then, I do not know. Afterwards it was bitterly plain to both of us. Arrived at Bombay in the spring of the year, we - went our respective ways to meet no more for the next three or four months, when my leave and her love took us both to Simla. There we spent the _ season together; and there my fire of straw burnt itself out to a pitiful end with the closing year. I Sees ey 6 ss THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. | attempt no excuse. I make no apology. Mrs. Wessington had given up much for my sake, and was prepared to give up all. From my own lips, in August, 1882, she learnt that I was sick of her pres- — oe ence, tired of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred — would have wearied of me as I wearied of them ; seventy-five of that number would have promptly c 2 avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation. with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hun- — oS dredth. On her neither my openly expressed aver- sion nor the cutting brutalities with which I gar- nished our interviews had the least effect. “Jack, darling!’’ was her one eternal cuckoo ery: “Tmsure it’s all a mistake—a hideous mistake ; and we'll be good friends again some day. Please forgive me, Jack, dear.’ : I was the offender, and I knew it. That knowl- edge transformed my pity into passive endurance, — and, eventually, into blind hate—the same instinct, I suppose, which prompts a man to savagely stamp on the spider he has but half killed. And with this ~ es hate in my bosom the season of 1882 came to an end. | Next year we met again at Simla-—-she with ae er, monotonous face and timid attempts atreconcilation, _ and I with loathing of her in every fiber of iy 8 frame. Several times I could not avoidmeeting her __ alone; and on each occasion her words were’ identi- — Oe cally the same. Still the unreasoning wail that it was all a “ mistake’; and still the hope of event- _ THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW. 7 ually “ making friends.” I might have seen, had I cared to look, that that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I main- tain that she was much toblame. And again, some- times, in the black, fever-stricxen night-watches, I have begnn to think that I might have been a little kinder to her. But that really 7¢a “delusion.” I could not have continued pretending to love her when I didn’t; could I? It would have been unfair to us both. Last year we met again—on the same terms as be- fore.. The same weary appeals, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make her see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her at- tempts at resuming the old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart—that is to say, she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When I think it over quietly in my sick-room, the season of 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade were fantastically intermingled—my court- ship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes, doubts, and fears; our long rides together; my trembling avowal of attachment; her reply; and now and again a vision of a white face flitting by in the ’rick- shaw with the black and white liveries I once watched for so earnestly ; the wave of Mrs. Wes. sington’s gloved hand; and, when she met me alone, cid ua at * ( B \ id 8 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering ; honestly, heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed “mag- pie” jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it already. “So I hear you’re engaged, Jack, dear.” Then, without a moment’s pause ;—“I’m sure it’s all a mistake—a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day, Jack, as we ever were.” My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before me like the blow of a whip. ‘Please forgive me, Jack; I didn’t mean to make you angry; but it’s true, it’s true!” And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, that I had been an utterably mean hound. I looked back, and saw that she had turned her ’rickshaw with the idea, I suppose, of overtaking me. The scene and its surroundings were photographed onmy memory. The rain-swept sky (we were at the end of the wet weather), the sodden, dingy pines, the muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs formed a gloomy background against which the black and white liveries of the ghampanies, the yellow-paneled ‘rickshaw: and Mrs. Wessington’s down-bowed golden head stood out clearly. She ho 08 om Gilt cna nels ts oleae | rune, an win Chee tewet ‘ owl ek ph A aN We RAR Soa aod D ae cE | ian pik MS: sph ai omg, 1 orn Reet p aeons beat T yah trem areca ike nd tal, Yo caed oat Ga hedtyola pty jo Cameos i yi a “ (mehy ues x HERBS HOT in sh wite oi --| oa y deeue » wa od Usde wt .solahebe geen . “snow taeo a. Ga aoa, tab “ ae) POLIT ¥ BM 2 UT OAR even idgint oy io wold od? oft) ein ototed mame, ithe hitb [ :aloal om. evrnian: 2 ” ford ot ond aiid oe ee T whietala 902 » GD ot ae olgetana WF ig tok sald od wil Hel sept if fie) OW) 4D Geto 2 10? qyimo andy Rint 2a dani A | emia € yet ees iy ai watliasty® vad bedsiid bad aided | * ont ga pkabarto Tae hake TAKAO Sey Pa araaly UREA BED dA, wii Aa eww ey ) (wasgowe podcast Aes. Wyilh shia aid Conieen witilty 2 a OO HA enn nich ay oc}. iuaw Ratstartee browiguoad att, wee GHAI, edi i cormavra mW siunl ¥ mca WT wall Diva seo oda ve te Booa hood ‘hl i Ce Oh oy Ly tet & ie a z + - tous both. and fears; our long rides together; my trembli THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW. 7 ually “making friends.” I might have seen, had I cared to look, that that hope only was keeping her alive. She grew more wan and thin month by month. You will agree with me, at least, that such conduct would have driven any one to despair. It was uncalled for; childish; unwomanly. I main- tain that she was much to blame. And again, some- times, in the black, fever-stricken night-watches, I have begnn to think that I might have been a little kinder to her. But that really 7s a “delusion.” I could not have continued pretending to love her when I didn’t; could 1? It would have been unfair Last year we met again—on the same terms as be- fore. The same weary appeals, and the same curt answers from my lips. At least I would make her . see how wholly wrong and hopeless were her at- tempts at resuming the old relationship. As the season wore on, we fell apart—that is to say, she found it difficult to meet me, for I had other and more absorbing interests to attend to. When J think it over quietly in my sick-room, the season 0: 1884 seems a confused nightmare wherein light and shade were fantastically intermingled—my court ship of little Kitty Mannering; my hopes, doubt: avowal of attachment; her reply; and now again a vision of a white face flitting by in the ’ shaw with the black and white liveries I watched for so earnestly ; the wave of Mr sington’s gloved hand; and, when-she met me } 8 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. which was but seldom, the irksome monotony of her appeal. I loved Kitty Mannering ; honestly, heartily loved her, and with my love for her grew my hatred for Agnes. In August_Kitty and I were engaged. The next day I met those accursed “mag- pie” jhampanies at the back of Jakko, and, moved - by some passing sentiment of pity, stopped to tell Mrs. Wessington everything. She knew it already. “So I hear you're engaged, Jack, dear.” Then, without a moment’s pause ;—“I’m sure it’s all a mistake—a hideous mistake. We shall be as good friends some day, Jack, as we ever were.” My answer might have made even a man wince. It cut the dying woman before me like the blow of ‘a whip. ‘Please forgive me, Jack; I didn’t mean to make you angry; but it’s true, it’s true!” And Mrs. Wessington broke down completely. I turned away and left her to finish her journey in peace, feeling, but only for a moment or two, thatI — ad been an utterably mean hound. I looked back, — ind saw that she had turned her ’rickshaw with the dea, [ suppose, of overtaking me. — : The scene and its surroundings were photographed mmy memory. The rain-swept sky (we were at the. ‘of the wet weather), the sodden, dingy pines, muddy road, and the black powder-riven cliffs _ ed a gloomy background against which the r-paneled ’rickshaw and Mrs. Wessington’s bowed golden head stood out clearly. She \ \ ; and white liveries of the jhampantes, the — THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 9 _ was holding her handkerehief in her left hand and was leaning back exhausted against the ’rickshaw cushions. I turned my horseup a by-path near the Sanjowlie Reservoir and literally ran away. Once I fancied I heard a faint call of “ Jack!” This may have been imagination. I never stopped to verify- it. Ten minutes later I came across Kitty on horse- back; and, in the delight of a long ride with her, forgot all about the interview. A week later Mrs. Wessington died, and the in- expressible burden of her existence was removed from my life. I went Plainsward perfectly happy. Before three months were over [ had forgotten all about her, except that at times the discovery of some of her old letters reminded me unpleasantly of our bygone relationship. By January I had disin- terred what was left of our correspondence from among my scattered belongings and had burnt it. At the beginning of April of this year, 1885, I was at Simla—semi-deserted Simla—once more, and was deep in lover’s talks and walks with Kitty. It was decided that we should be married at the end of June. You will understand, therefore, that, loving Kitty as I did, I am not saying too much when I _ pronounce myself to have been, at that time, the happiest man in India. Fourteen delightful days passed almost before I noticed their flight. Then, aroused to the sense of what was proper among mortals circumstanced as we were, I pointed out to Kitty that an engagement ring was the outward and visible sign of her dignity THE PHANTOM ‘RICKSHAW. — as an engaged girl; and that she must. fortinwith. a come to Hamilton’s to be measured for one. Up to . : that moment, I give you my word, we had com- pletely for iotion so trivial amatter. ToHamilton’s — = we accordingly went on the 15th of April, 1885. Remember that—whatever my doctor may say to — the contrary—I was then in perfect health sonore =e ee a well-balanced mind and an absolutely tranquil — spirit. Kitty and I entered Hamilton’s shop fo gether, and there, regardless of the order of affairs, I measured Kitty for the ring in the presence of the amused assistant. The ring was a sapphire with two diamonds. We then rode out down the slope Q that leads to the Combermere Bridge and eS SNOOP. = While my Waler was cautiously feeling his way over the loose shale, and Kitty was laughing and — chattering at my side—while all Simla, that is o” say as much of it as had then come from the eae was grouped round the Reading-room and Peliti’ veranda,—I was aware that some one , apparently a vast distance, was calling me by my Christian name. It struck me that I had heard the voice before, but when and where I could not at once determine. In the short space it took to cover the road between the path from Hamilton’s shop and. the first plank of the Combermere Bridge I had thought over half a dozen people who might have : ported such a solecism, and had eventually decided that it must have ee some singing in my ears, Immediately opposite Pelee S 2 nee aye cee ia ee THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW. id was arrested by the sight of four jhampanies in “magpie ” livery, pulling a yellow-paneled, cheap, bazar “rickshaw. In a moment my mind flew back to the previous season and Mrs. Wessington with a sense of irritation and disgust. Was it not enough that the woman was dead and done with, without her black and white servitors reappearing ae to spoil the day’s happiness? Whoever employed them now | thought I would call upon, and ask as a personal favor to change her jhampanies’ livery. I would hire the men myself, and, if necessary, buy their coats from off their backs. It is impossible to say here what a flood of undesirable memories their presence evoked. “Kitty,” I cried, “there are poor Mrs. Wes- sington’s ghampanies turned up again! I wonder who has them now ?” Kitty had known Mrs. Wessington slightly last season, and had always been interested in the sickly woman. “What? Where?” sheasked. “Ican’tsee them anywhere.” Even as she spoke, her horse, swerving from a laden mule, threw himself directly in front of the advancing ’rickshaw. I had scarcely time to utter a word of warning, when, to my unutterable horror, horse and rider passed through men and carriage as if they had been thin air. “What's the matter?” cried Kitty; “what made you call out so foolishly, Jack? If I am engaged I don’t want all creation to know about it. There 12 THE PHANTOM. RICKSHAW. was lots of space between the mule andthe veranda; — and, if you think I can’t ride There |, 2. 3 Whereupon wilful Kitty set off, her dainty little head in the air, at a hand-gallop in the direction of the Band-stand; fully expecting, as she herself afterwards told me, that I should follow her. What was the matter? Nothing indeed. Either that I — was mad or drunk, or that Simla was haunted with devils. I reined in my impatient cob, and turned round. The ’rickshaw had turned too, and now stood immediately facing me, near the left railing of the Combermere Bridge. “ Jack! Jack, darling!” (There was no mistake © about the words this time: they rang through my brain as if they had been shouted in my ear.) “It’s some hideous mistake, ’m sure. Please forgive me, Jack, and let’s be Se again,” The ’rickshaw-hood had fallen back, and inside, as. I hope and pray daily for the deat I dread by — night, sat Mrs. Keith-Wessington, handkerchief in hand, and golden head anes on ee breast. How long 1 stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my syce taking the Waler’s bridle and asking whether I was ill. From the horrible to the commonplace is but a step. I ee tnmbled off my horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti’s for a glass of cherry-brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were more comforting to me just then than the con- solations of religion could have been. I plunged THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 13 into the midst of the conversation at once; chatted, laughed, and jested with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men noticed my condi- tion; and, evidently setting it down to the results of over-many pegs, charitably endeavored to draw me apart from the rest of the loungers. But I re ' fused to be led away. I wanted the company of my kind—as a child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a fright inthedark. Imust have talked for about ten minutes or so, though it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty’s clear voice outside inquiring for me. In another minute she had entered the shop, prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties. Something in my face stopped her. “Why, Jack,” she cried, “what have you been doing? What fas happened? Are you ill?” Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o’clock of a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my mis- take as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty in a regal rage, out of doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some ex- cuse (I have forgotten what) on the score of my feel- ing faint; and cantered away to my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself. In my room I[ sat down and tried calmly to rea- son out the matter. Here was I, Theobald Jack _ 14 THE PHANTOM "RICKSHAW. ee Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in ihe year of grace 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, — driven in tener from my sweetheart’s side by the — apparition of a woman who had been dead and buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink. Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington a hen Kitty and I left Hamilton’s shop. N othing | was more utterly commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti’s. It was broad daylight, The road was full of people; and yet here, look you, in defiance of every law of probability, in direct out- rage of Nature’s ordinance, there had pe to me a face from the grave. Kitty’s Arab had gone through the ’rickshaw : that my first hope that some woman eee oe like Mrs. Wessington had hired the carriage and — the coolies with their old livery was lost. Again and again I went round this tread-mill of thought ; and again and again gave up baffled and in despair. _ The voice was as inexplicable as the apparition. I had originally some wild notion of confiding it alle; to Kitty; of begging her to marry me at once; and in her arms defying the ghostly occupant of the — rickshaw. “ After all, I argued, “the presence of the ’rickshaw is in itself enough to prove the ex- istence of a spectral illusion. One may see ghosts _ of men and women, but surely never of coolies and carriages. The ae thing is absurd. Bs the = ghost of a hillman !” N ext morning I sent a penitent note io Kitty, . THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 15 imploring her to overlook my strange conduct of _ the previous afternoon. My Divinity was still very wroth, and a personal apology was necessary. I explained, with a fluency born of night-long ponder- ing over a falsehood, that I had been attacked with a sudden nae of the heart—the result of in- digestion. This eminently practical solution had its ~ effect ; and Kitty and I rode out that afternoon with the shadow of my first lie dividing us. Nothing would please her save a canter round Jakko. With my nerves still unstrung from the previous night I feebly protested against the notion, suggesting Observatory Hill, Jutogh, the Boileaug- unge road—anything rather than the Jakko round. Kitty was angry and alittle hurt: so I yielded from fear of provoking further misunderstanding, and we set out together towards Chota Simla. We walked a greater part of the way, and, according to our custom, cantered from a mile or so below the Con- vent to the stretch of level road by the Sanjowlie Reservoir. The wretched horses appeared to fly, and my heart beat quicker and quicker as we neared the crest of the ascent. My mind had been full of _ Mrs. Wessington all the afternoon; and every inch of the Jakko road bore witness to our old-time walks and talks. The bowlders were full of it; the pines sang it aloud overhead ; the rain-fed tor ie cigoled and chuckled unseen Beek the shameful story ; and the wind in my ears chanted the iniquity aloud. As a fitting climax, in the middle of the level men call the Ladies’ Mile the Horror was awaiting 16 THE PHANTOM eiOEeE Ge a = | me. No. other ’rickshaw was in sight—only the four black and white jhampanies, the yellow-paneled carriage, and the golden head of the woman within —all apparently just as [ had left them eight months and one fortnight ago! For an instant I fancied that Kitty must see what I saw—we were so mar- velously sympathetic in all things. Her next words undeceived me-—“ Not a soul in sight! Come along, Jack, and [ll race you to the Reservoir buildings ! ” Her wiry little Arab was off like a bird, my Waler following close behind, and in this Srtiee we dashed under the cliffs. Halfa minute brought us within — fifty yards of the ’rickshaw. I pulled my Waler and fell back a little. The ’rickshaw was directly in the middle of the road; and once more the Arab passed through it, my horse ce “ Jack ! Jack dear! Please forgive me,” rang with a wail in my ears, and, after an ftom: :-—“ It’s all : a@ mis- take, a iden see ee I poured my horse like a man possessed. When I turned my head at the Reservoir works, the black and white liveries were still welling. = te = waiting—under the gray hillside, and the wind — brought me a mocking echo of the words I had just heard. Kitty bantered mea good deal on my silence throughout the remainder of the ride. I had been talking up till then wildly and at random. To save my life I could not speak afterwards naturally, and from Sanjowlie to the Church ey held my tongue. I was to dine with the Mannerings that oe os THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 17 and had barely time to canter home to dress. On the road to Elysium Hill I overheard two men talk- ing together in the dusk—“ It’s a curious thing,” said one, “how completely all trace of it disap- peared. You know my wife was insanely fond of the woman (never could see anything in her my- self), and wanted me to pick up her old ’rickshaw and coolies if they were to be got for love or money. Morbid sort of fancy I call it; but Pve got to do what Memsahib tells me. Would you believe that the man she hired it from tells me that all four of the men—they were brothers—died of cholera on the way to Hardwar, poor devils; and the ’rickshaw has been broken up by the man himself. *Told me he never used a dead Memsahib’s rickshaw. ’Spoilt his luck. Queer notion, wasn’t it? Fancy poor little Mrs. Wessington spoiling any one’s luck ex- cept herown!” I laughed aloud at this point ; and my laugh jarred onme as [uttered it. So there were ghosts of ’rickshaws after all, and ghostly em- ployments in the other world! How much did Mrs. Wessington give her men? What were their hours? Where did they go? And for visible answer to my last question I saw the infernal Thing blocking my path in the twilight. The dead travel fast, and by short cuts unknown to ordinary coolies. I laughed aloud a second time and checked my laughter suddenly, for I was afraid I was going mad. Mad to a certain extent I must have been, for I recollect that I reined in my horse at the head of the ’rickshaw, and politely wished 18" THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. __ Mrs. Wessington “ Good-evening.” Her answer was ‘ one I knew only too well. I listened to the end; and replied that I had heard it all before, but should be delighted if she had anything further to say. Some malignant devil stronger than I must have entered into me that evening, for I have a dim rec. ollection of talking the commonplaces _ of the day for five minutes to the Thing in front of me. “ Mad asa hatter, poor devil—or drunk. Ae, try and get him to come home.” Surely that was not Mrs. Wessington’s os ee The two men had overheard me speaking to the empty air, and had returned to look afterme. They were very kind and considerate, and from their words. evidently gathered that I was extremely drunk. I thanked them confusedly and cantered away to my hotel, there changed, and arrived at the Mannerings’ ten minutes late. I pleaded the dark- ness of the night as an excuse; was rebuked by Kitty for my unlover-like tardiness; and sat down. The conversation had already beuae general ; and under cover of it, I was addressing some tender: small talk to my sweetheart when I was aware that | at the further end of the table a short red-whiskered man was describing, with much broidery, his en So counter with a mad unknown that evening. A few sentences convinced me that he was repeat- ing the incident of haifan hour ago. In themiddle — of the story he looked round for applause, as profes-_ as sional story-tellers do, caught myeye and straightway - collapsed. There was a moment’s awkward silence, — - “s THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 19 and the red-whiskered man muttered something to the effect that he had “ forgotten the rest,” thereby sacrificing a reputation as a good story-teller which he had built up for six seasons past. I blessed him from the bottom of my heart, and—went on with my fish. In the fulness of time that dinner came to an end ; and with genuine regret I tore myself away from Kitty—as certain as I was of my own existence that it would be waiting for me outside the door. The _red-whiskered man,-who had been introduced to me as Dr. Heatherlegh of Simla, volunteered to bear -me company as far as our roads lay together. I ac- cepted his offer with gratitude. My instinct had not deceived me. It lay in readi- ness in the Mall, and, in what seemed devilish mockery of our ways, with a lighted head-lamp. The red-whiskered man went to the point at once, in a manner that showed he had been thinking over it all dinner time. “{f say, Pansay, what the deuce was the matter with you this evening on the Elysium road?” The suddenness of the question wrenched an answer from me before I was aware. “That!” said I, pointing to It. 7 “ That may be either D. T. or Eyes for aught I know. Now you don’t liquor. I saw as much at dinner, so it can’t be D. 7. There’s nothing what- ever where you're pointing, though you're sweat- ing and trembling with fright like a scared pony. Therefore, I conclude that it’s Eyes. And I ought et tr ly tn tis al 20 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. “ to understand all about them. Come along home — with me. I’m on the Blessington lower road.” To my intense delight the rickshaw, instead of waiting for us, kept about twenty yards ahead—and ‘this, too, whether we walked, trotted, or cantered. In the course of that long night ride I had told my ~ companion almost as much as I have told you — here. “Well, you’ve spoilt one of the best tales Pve ever laid tongue to,” said he, “but Dll forgive you for the sake of what you’ve gone through. Now come home and do what I tell you; and when I’ve cured you, young man, let this bea lesson to you to steer clear of women and indigestible food till the day of your death.” The ’rickshaw kept steady in front; and my red- whiskered friend seemed to derive i pleasure from my account of its exact whereabouts.’ “Hyes, Pansay—all Eyes, Brain, and Stomach. And the greatest of these three is Stémmaeh, You’ve too much conceited Brain, too little Stomach, and thoroughly unhealthy Eyes. Get your Stomach straight and the rest follows. And all that’s French for a liver pill. Jl take sole medical charge of you from’ this hour! for you're too interesting a oe . nomenon to be passed over.” By this time we were deep in the shadow of the Blessington lower road and the ’rickshaw came to a dead stop under a pine-clad, overhanging shale cliff. Instinctively I halted too, giving my reason. Heatherlegh rapped out an oath. THE PHANTOM ‘RICKSHAW. ZY “ Now, if you think [’m going to spend a cold night on the hillside for the sake of a Stomach-ewm- Brain-cwm-Eye illusion. .. Lord, ha’ mercy! What’s that ?” There was a muffled report, a blinding smother of dust just in front of us, a crack, the noise of rent boughs, and about ten yards of the cliff-side—pines, undergrowth, and all—slid down into the road below, completely blocking it up. The uprooted trees swayed and tottered for a moment like drunken giants in the gloom, and then fell prone among their fellows with a thunderous crash. Our two horses stood motionless and sweating with fear. As soon as the rattle of falling earth and stone had subsided, my companion muttered :—“ Man, if we’d gone for- ward we should have been ten feet deep in our graves by now. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth’ . . . Come home, Pansay, and thank God. I want a peg badly.” We retraced our way over the Church Ridge, and I arrived at Dr. Heatherlegh’s house shortly after midnight. : His attempts towards my cure commenced almost immediately, and for a week I never left his side. Many a time in the course of that week did I bless the good-fortune which had thrown me in contact with Simla’s best and kindest doctor. Day by day my spirits grew lighter and more equable. Day by day, too, I became more and more inclined to fall in with Heatherlegh’s “spectral illusion” theory, implicating eyes, brain, and stomach. I1 wrote to 22 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. __ Kitty, telling her that a slight sprain caused bya | fall from my horse kept me indoors for a few days; _ and that I should be recovered before she had time _ to regret my absence. Heatherlegh’s treatment was simple toa debe. It consisted af liver pills, cold-water baths, and strong — exercise, taken in the dusk or at early dawn—for, as he sagely observed :—“ A man with a sprained ankle doesn’t walk a dozen miles a day, and your eae might be wondering if she saw you.” At the end of the week, after much examination of pupil and pulse, and strict injunctions as to diet and pedestrianism, Heatherlegh dismissed me as brusquely as he had taken charge of me. Here is his parting benediction :-—“ Man, I certify to your mental cure, and that’s as much as to say ve cured most of your bodily ailments. Now, get your traps out of this as soon as you can; and pe off to make love to Miss Kitty.” I was endeavoring to express my thanks for his. kindness. He cut me short. “Don’t think I did this because I like you. I — gather that you’ve behaved like a blackguard all. through. But, all the same, you’re a phenomenon, ~ and as queer a phenomenon as you area blackguard.~ No!”—checking me a second time—“not a rupee, — please. Go out and see if you can find the eyes- _ brain-and-stomach business again. Tl give you a lakh for each time you see it.” Half an hour later I was in the Mannerings THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 23 _ drawing-room with Kitty—drunk with the intoxica- tion of present happiness and the foreknowledge that I should never more be troubled with Its hideous presence. Strong in the sense of my new-found security, I proposed a ride at once; and, by prefer- ence, a canter round Jakko. Never had I felt so well, so overladen with vital- ity and mere animal spirits, as I did on the after- noon of the 30th of April. Kitty was delighted at _ the change in my appearance, and complimented me on it in her delightfully frank and outspoken manner. We left the Mannerings’ house together, laughing and talking, and cantered along the Chota Simla road as of old. I was in haste to reach the Sanjowlie Reservoir and there make my assurance doubly sure. The horses did their best, but seemed all too slow to my impatient mind. Kitty was astonished at my bois- terousness. “ Why, Jack!” she cried at last, “you are behaving likea child. Whatare you doing?” We were just below the Convent, and from sheer wantonness I was making my Waler plunge and curvet across the road as I tickled it with the loop of my riding-whip. “Toing?” I answered; “nothing, dear. That’s just it. If you’d been doing nothing for a week except lie up, you’d be as riotous as I. ‘6 ¢Singing and murmuring in your feastful mirth, Joying to feel yourself alive ; Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible Earth Lord of the senses five.’” 24 THE PHANTOM "RICKSHAW. My quotation was hardly out of my lips before we had rounded the corner above the Convent ; and’ a, few yards further on could see across to Sanjowlie. In the center of the level road stood the black and white liveries, the yellow-paneled ’rickshaw, and Mrs. Keith-Wessington. I pulled up, looked, rubbed my eyes, and, I believe, must have said something. The next thing I knew ‘was that I was lying face downward on the road, with Kitty kneeling above me in tears. “Has It gone, child?” I gasped. Kitty only | wept more bitterly. “Has what gone, Jack, dear? what does it all mean? There must be a mistake somewhere, Jack. A hideous mistake.” Her last words brought me to my feet—mad— raving for the time being. “Yes, there 2s a mistake somewhere,” I repeated, “‘a, hideous mistake. Come and look at It.” I have an indistinct idea that I dragged Kitty by the wrist along the road up to where It stood, and implored her for pity’s sake to speak to It; to tell It that we were betrothed ; that neither Death nor Hell could break the tie between us: and Kitty only knows how-much more to the same effect. Now and again I appealed passionately te the Terror in the ’rickshaw to bear witness to all I had said, and to release me from a torture that was kill- ing me. As I talked I suppose I must have told Kitty of my old relations with Mrs. Wessington, for I saw her listen intently with white face and blazing eyes. THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 95 “¢ Thank you, Mr. Pansay,” she said, “ that’s guete enough. Syce ghora lao.” The syces, impassive as Orientals always are, had come up with the recaptured horses ; and as Kitty sprang into her saddle I caught hold of the bridle, en- treating her to hear me out and forgive. My answer was the cut of her riding-whip across my face from mouth to eye, and a word or two of farewell that even now I cannot write down. So I judged, and judged rightly, that Kitty knew all; and I staggered . back to the side of the rickshaw. My face was cut and bleeding, and the blow of the riding-whip had _ raised a livid blue wheal onit. I had no self-respect. Just then, Heatherlegh, who must have been fol- lowing Kitty and me at a distance, cantered up. “Doctor,” I said, pointing to my face, “here’s Miss Mannering’s signature to my order of dismissal and . . . Ill thank you for that lakh as soon as convenient.” Heatherlegh’s face, even in my abject misery, moved me to laughter. “Tl stake my professional reputation ”—he be- an. “Don’t be a fool,” I whispered. “I’ve lost my life’s happiness and you’d better take me home.” As I spoke the ’rickshaw was gone. Then I lost all knowledge of what was passing. The crest of Jakko seemed to heave and roll like the crest of a cloud and fall in upon me. Seven days later (on the 7th of May, that is to say) I was aware that I was lying in Heatherlegh’s 26 THE PHANTOM "RICKSHAW. __ room as weak as a little child: Heatherlegh was watching me intently from behind the papers on his writing-table. His first words were not encourag- ing; but I was too far spent to be much moved oy them. — “Here’s Miss Kitty has sent back your letters, You corresponded a good deal, you young people. Here’s a packet that looks like a ring, and a cheerful sort of a note from Mannering Papa, which Pve taken the liberty of reading and burning. The old gentleman’s not pleased with you.” 7 “ And Kitty?” I asked dully. “ Rather more drawn than her father, from what she says. By the same token you must have been letting out any number of queer reminiscences just before I met you. ’Says that a man who would have behaved to a woman as you did to Mrs. Wes- sington ought to kill himself out of sheer pity for his kind. She’s a hot-headed little virago, your mash. ’Will have it too that you were suffering from D. 7. when that row on the Jakko road turned up. aye she’ll die before she ever speaks to you again.” I groaned and turned over on the other side. _ “ Now you’ve got your choice, my friend. This engagement has to be broken off; and the Manner- ings ‘don’t want to be too a on you. Was it | broken through D. 7. or epileptic fits? Sorry I can’t offer you a better exchange unless you’d pre- fer hereditary insanity. Say the word and [ll tell em it’s fits, All Simla knows about that scene on j THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 27 N the Ladies’ Mile. Come! T’ll give you five min- -/ates to think over it.” ' During those five minutes I believe that I ex- plored thoroughly the lowest circles of the Inferno which it is permitted man to tread on earth. And at the same time I myself was watching myself fal- tering through the dark labyrinths of doubt, misery, and utter despair. I wondered, as Heatherlegh in his chair might have wondered, which dreadful al- ternative I should adopt. Presently I heard myself answering in a voice that I hardly recognized,— “ They’re confoundedly particular about morality in these parts. Give’em fits, Heatherlegh, and my love. Now let mesleep a bit longer.” Then my two selves joined, and it was only I (half- crazed, devil-driven I) that tossed in my bed, tracing step by step the history of the past month. “ But I am in Simla,” I kept repeating to myself. “T, Jack Pansay,am in Simla, and there are no ghosts here. It’s unreasonable of that woman to pretend there are. Why couldn’t Agnes have left me alone? Inever did her any harm. It might just as well have been me as Agnes, Only Id never have come back on purpose to kill her. Why can’t I be left alone—left alone and happy ?” It was high noon when I first awoke; and the sun was low in the sky before I Bene deat as the tor- tured criminal sleeps on his rack, too worn to feel further pain. Next day I could not leave my bed. Heatherlegh told me in the morning that he had received an ey 25) THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. ‘ 3 ~~ aS ee ame Pees ag > hee 3 answer from Mr. Mannering, and that, thanks to his (Heatherlegh’s) friendly offices, the story of my affliction had traveled through the length and. breadth of Simla, where I was on all sides much pitied. “And that’s rather more than you deserve, i he concluded pleasantly, “though the Lord vie you've been going through a pretty severe mill. Never ees we'll cure you yet, you perverse phe- nomenon.’ I declined firmly to be cured. ‘“ You've been much too good to me already, old man,” said 1; “but I don’t think I need trouble you further.” In my heart I knew that nothing Heatherlegh could do would lighten the burden that had been laid upon me. With that knowledge came also a sense of hope- less, impotent rebellion against the unreasonable- ness of it all. There were scores of men no better than I whose punishments had at least been reserved for another world; and I felt that it was bitterly, cruelly unfair that I alone should have been singled out for so hideous a fate. This mood would in time give place to another where it seemed that the rickshaw and I were the only realities in a world of shadows; that Kitty was a ghost; that Mannering, Heatherlegh, and all the other men and women I knew were all ghosts ; and the great, gray hills them- selves but vain shadows devised to tortureme. From mood to mood I tossed backwards and forwards for seven weary days; my body growing daily stronger THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW. 29, _ and stronger, until the bedroom looking-glass told me that I had returned to every-day life and was as other men once more. Curiously enough my face showed no signs of the struggle I had gone through. It was pale indeed, but as expressionless and commonplace asever. Ihad expected some permanent alteration —visible evidence of the disease that was eating me away. I found nothing. On the 15th of May I left Heatherlegh’s house at eleven o’clock in the morning; and the instinct of the bachelor drove me tothe Club. There I found that every man knew my story as told by Heather- legh, and was, in clumsy fashion, abnormally kind and attentive. Nevertheless I recognized that for the rest of my natural life I should be among but not of my fellows; and I envied very bitterly in- deed the laughing coolies on the Mall below. I lunched at the Club, and at four o’clock wandered aimlessly down the Mall in the vague hope of meet- ing Kitty. Close to the Band-stand the black and white liveries joined me; andI heard Mrs. Wessing- ton’s old appeal at my side. I had been expecting this ever singe I came out; and was only surprised at her delay. The phantom ’rickshaw and I went side by side along the Chota Simla road in silence. Close to the bazar, Kitty and a man on horseback overtook and passed us. For any sign she gave I might have been a dog in the road. She did not even pay me the compliment of quickening her pace ; though the rainy afternoon had served for an excuse. So Kitty and her companion, and I and my ghostly se 30. THE PHANTOM leith so ek Light-o’-Love, crept round Jakko in conples. The road was streaming with water; the pines dripped like roof-pipes on the rocks Belén and the air was full of fine, driving rain. Two or three times I found myself saying to myself almost aloud:—“ Pm Jack Pansay on leave at Simla—at Semla ! Every-day, ordinary Simla. I mustn’t forget that—I mustn’t. forget that.” Then I would try to recollect some of the gossip I had heard at the Club: the prices of So- and-So’s horses—anything, in fact, that related to the work-a-day Anglo-Indian world I knew so well. I even repeated the multiplication-table rapidly to myself, to make quite sure that I was not taking leave of my senses. It gave me much comfort; and must have prevented my hearing Mrs. Wessington for a time. | : | Once more I wearily climbed the Convent slope and entered the level road. Here Kitty and the man started off ata canter, and I was leftalone with Mrs. Wessington. “ Agnes,” said I, “ will you put back your hood and tell me what it allmeans?” The hood dropped noiselessly, and I was face to face with my dead and buried mistress. She was wearing the dress in which I had last seen her alive; carried the same tiny handkerchief in her right hand ; and the same card-case in her left. (A woman eight months dead with a card-case!) -Lhad to pin myself down to the multiplication-table, and to set both hands on the stone parapet of the road, to assure myself that that at least was real. 3 “ Aones,” I repeated, “for pity’s sake tell me THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW. 31 what it allmeans.” Mrs. Wessington leant forward, with that odd quick turn of the head I used to know “so well, and spoke. - Tf my story had not already so madly overleaped ‘the bounds of all human belief I should apologize to you now. As I know that no one—no, not even | Kitty, for whom it is written as some sort of justifi- cation of my conduct-—will believe me, I will go on. Mrs. Wessington spoke and I walked an ee from the Sanjowlie road to the turning below the Com- mander-in-Chief’s house as I might walk by the side of any living woman’s ’rickshaw, deep in conversa- tion. The second and most tormenting of my moods 4 sickness had suddenly laid hold upon me, and like ‘the Prince in Tennyson's poem, “I seemed to move ‘amid a world of ghosts.” There had been a garden- ‘party at the Commander-in-Chief’s, and we two joined the crowd of homeward-bound folk. As I saw them then it seemed that they were the shadows —impalpable fantastic shadows—that divided for Mrs. W essington’s rickshaw to passthrough. What we said during the course of that weird interview I cannot—indeed, I dare not—tell. Heatherlegh’s comment would have been a short laugh and a remark that Thad been “mashing a brain-eye-and-stomach chimera.” Itwasa ghastly and yet in some indefin- able way amarvelously dear experience. Could it be possible, I wondered, that I was in this life to woo a second time the woman I had killed by my own neglect and cruelty ¢ 32 THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW.. I met Kitty on the homeward road—a shadow among shadows. If I were to describe all the incidents of the nexé fortnight in their order, my story would never come to an end; and your acne would be exhausted. Morning after morning and evening after evening the ghostly ’rickshaw and J used to wander through Simla together. | Wherever I went there the four black and white liveries followed me and bore me company to and from my hotel. At the Theater I found them amid the crowd of yelling jhampanies ; outside the Club veranda, after a long evening of whist ; at the Birthday Ball, waiting patiently for my rcappenence: and in broad daylight when I went calling. Save that it cast no shadow, the ’rick. shaw was in every respect as real to look upon as one of wood and iron. More than once, indeed, I have had to check myself from warning some hard: riding friend against cantering over it. More thar once I have walked down the Mall deep in conver- sation with Mrs. Wessington to the unspeakable amazement of the passers-by. | Before I had been out and about a week I learned. that the “fit” theory had been discarded in favor of insanity. However, I made no change in my mode of life. Icalled, rode, and dined out as freely as ever. I had a passion for the society of my kind which I had never felt before; I hungered to be among the realities of life ; and at the’same time I felt vaguely unhappy when a had been separated too long from my ghostly companion. It would be al- Pas Dt PS ee ge ONES Ae Tie A agi Ses & eee Ma te SW aka vg aig : - >t ae +" ADR ag Pos ; iB Vix if “Se Fe = "aoe ; 5 ; ore eS { THE PHANTOM ’RICKSHAW. 33 -naost impossible to describe my varying moods from ‘he 15th of May up to to-day. _ The presence of the ’rickshaw filled me by turns : ‘with horror, blind fear, a dim sort of pleasure, and “utter despair. I dared not leave Simla; and I knew ; “that my stay there was killing me. I knew, more- Over, that it was my destiny to die slowly anda little every day. My only anxiety was to get the penance over as quietly as might be. Alternately I hungered for a sight of Kitty and watched her out- rageous flirtations with my successor—to speak more accurately, my successors—with amused interest. She was as much out of my life as I was out of hers. By day I wandered with Mrs. Wessington almost con- tent.’ By night I implored Heaven to let me return to the world as I used to know it. Above all these varying moods lay the sensation of dull, numbing wonder that the Seen and the Unseen should mingle so strangely on this earth to hound one poor soul to its grave. August 27.—Heatherlegh has been indefatigable in his attendance on me; and only yesterday told me that I ought to send in an application for sick leave. An application to escape the company of a_ phantom! A request that the Government would graciously permit me to get rid of five ghosts and an airy rickshaw by going to England! Heather- legh’s proposition moved me almost to hysterical laughter. I told him that I should await the end 3 THE PHANTOM "RICKSHAW. : 34 quietly at es and I am sure that the he tS ‘not S far off. Boller me that I dread its advent more than any word can say ; and I torture myself nightly — with a thousand speculations as to the manner a ay my death. © . Shall I die in my bed decently and as an ‘aga : gentleman should die; or, in one last walk on the — - Mall, will my soul be ron? from me to take its _ place for ever and ever by the side of that ghastly phantasm? Shall I return to my old lost allegiance in the next world, or shall I meet Agnes, loan y her and bound £6 her side through all eternity ? Shall we two hover over the scene of our lives till ~ the end of Time? As the day of my death draws nearer, the intense horror that all living flesh feels pvarde escaped spirits from beyond the grave ‘grows more and more powerful. It is an awful — thing to go down quick among the dead with scarcely one-half of your life completed. It is a — thousand times more awful to wait as I do in your midst, for I know not what unimaginable terror. Pity me, at least on the score of my “delusion,” for _ Iknow you will never believe what I have written ae here. Yet as surely as ever a man was done to death by the Powers of Darkness I am that man. 3 In justice, too, pity her. For as surely asever woman was killed by man, I killed Mrs. Wessington. ; And the last portion of my punishment is even now upon me. 3 THE STRANGE RIDE OF MOR- ROWBIE JUKES. Alive or dead—there is no other way.—Native Proverb. THERE 1s, as the conjurers say, no deception about this tale. Jukes by accident stumbled upon a village that is well known to exist, though he is the only Englishman who has been there. A somewhat similar institution used to flourish on the outskirts of Calcutta, and there is a story that if you go into the heart of Bikanir, which is in the heart of the Great Indian Desert, you shall come across not a village but a town where the Dead who did not die but may not live have established their headquarters. And, since it is perfectly true that in the same Desert is a wonderful city where all the rich money- lenders retreat after they have made their fortunes (fortunes so vast that the owners cannot trust even the strong hand of the Government to protect them, but take refuge in the waterless sands), and drive sumptuous O-spring barouches, and buy beautiful girls and decorate their palaces with gold and ivory and Minton tiles and mother-o’-pearl, I do not see why Jukes’s tale should not be true. He ee Civil . 5 36 THE STRANGE RIDE. Engineer, with a head for plans and distances and things of that kind, and he certainly would not take the trouble to invent imaginary traps. He could ~ earn more by doing his legitimate work. He never varies the tale in the telling, and grows very hot and indignant when he thinks of the disrespectful treatment he received. He wrote this quite straight- forwardly at first, but he has since touched it up in places and introduced Moral Reflections, thus : In the beginning it all arose from a slight attack of fever. My work necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and Mubarak- pur—a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor less ex- asperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient attention to keep me from moping, had I — been inclined to so unmanly a weakness. On the 23d December, 1884, I felt a little fever- ish. There was a full moon at the time, and, in consequence, every dog near my tent was baying it. The brutes assembled in twos and threes and drove me frantic. A few days previously I had shot one loud-mouthed singer and suspended his carcass am terrorem about fifty yards from my tent-door. But his friends fell upon, fought for, and ultimately devoured the body: and, as-it seemed to me, sang é their hymns of thanksgiving afterwards with: re- | newed energy. The light-headedness which accompanies fever 8 SSS THE STRANGE RIDE. 37 acts differently on different men. My irritation gave way, after a short time, to a fixed determina- tion to slaughter one huge black and white beast who had been foremost in song and first in flight throughout the evening. Thanks to a shaking hand and a giddy head I had already missed him twice with both barrels of my shotgun, when it struck me that my best plan would be to ride him down in the open and finish him off with a hog-spear. This, of course, was merely the semi-delirious notion of a fever patient ; but I remember that it struck me at the time as being eminently practical and feasible. I therefore ordered my groom to saddle Pornic and bring him round quietly to the rear of my tent. When the pony was ready, I stood at his head pre- pared to mount and dash out as soon as the dog should again lift up his voice. Pornic, by the way, had not been out of his pickets fora couple of days; the night air was crisp and chilly; and I was armed with a specially long and sharp pair of persuaders with which I had been rousing a sluggish cob that afternoon. You will easily believe, then, that when he was let go he went quickly. In one moment, for the brute bolted as straight as a die, the tent was left far behind, and we were flying over the smooth sandy soil at racing speed. In another we had passed the wretched dog, and I had almost forgotten why it was that I had taken horse and hog-spear. The delirium of fever and the excitement of rapid motion through the air must have taken away the remnant of my senses, I have a faint recollection THE STRANGE RIDE. of standing upright in my stirrups, and of brandish- ing my hog-spear at the great white Moon that looked down so calmly on my mad gallop; and of shouting challenges to the camel-thorn bushes as they whizzed past. Once or twice, I believe, I swayed forward on Pornic’s neck, sid literally hung on by my spurs—as the marks next mor ; showed. The wretched beast went forward Tike” a ne possessed, over what seemed to bea limitless expanse of moonlit sand. Next, I remember, the ground rose suddenly in front of us, and as we topped the ascent I saw the waters of the Sutlej shining like a silver bar below. Then Pornic blundered heavily on his nose, and we role together | down some un- seen slope. | oe I must have lost consciousness, for hee Ae 2 covered I was lying on my ssc ich in ae heap of soft white sand, and the dawn was beginning to. break dimly over the edge of the slope down. which — -IThad fallen. As the ent grew stronger I saw that I was at the bottom of a horseshoe-shaped crater of sand, opening on one side directly on to the shoals of the Subic}. My fever had altogether left me, and, with the exception of a slight dizziness in the 1 ud. I felt no bad effects from the fall over night. Pornic, who was standing a few yards away, was naturally a good deal exhausted, but had not 1 A himself in the least. His saddle, a favorite polo” one, was much knocked about, and had been twisted under his belly. It took me some time | to ee him THE STRANGE RIDE. 39 to rights, and in the meantime I had ample oppor- tunities of observing the spot into which I had so foolishly dropped. At the risk of being considered tedious, I must describe it at length ; inasmuch as an accurate men- tal picture of its peculiarities will be of material as- sistance in enabling the reader to understand what follows. 3 Imagine then, as I have said before, a horse-shoe- shaped crater of sand with steeply graded sand walls about thirty-five feet high. (The slope, I fancy, must have been about 65°.) This crater enclosed a level piece of ground about fifty yards long by thirty at its broadest part, with a rude well in the center. Round the bottom of the crater, about three feet from the level of the ground proper, ran a series of eighty-three semicircular, ovoid, square, and multi- lateral holes, all about three feet at the mouth. Each hole on inspection showed that it was carefully shored internally with drift-wood and bamboos, and over the mouth a wooded drip-board projected, like the peak of a jockey’s cap for two feet. No sign of life was visible in these tunnels, but a most sick- ening stench pervaded the entire amphitheater—a stench fouler than any which my wanderings in In- dian villages have introduced me to. Having remounted Pornic, who was as anxious as I to get back to camp, I rode round the base of the horseshoe to find some place whence an exit would be practicable. The inhabitants, whoever they might be, had not thought fit to put in an appear 40 THE STRANGE RIDE. ance, so I was left to my own devices. “My first es - tempt to “rush” Pornic up the steep sand- banks showed me that I had fallen into a trap exactly on the same model as that which the ant-lion sets for : its prey. At each step the shifting sand poured down from above in tons, and rattled on the drip- boards of the holes like small shot. A couple of — ineffectual charges sent us both rolling down. to the | bottom, half choked with the torrents of sand ; and © I was constrained to turn my attention to the river: : bank. coe Here everything seemed easy enough. ‘The sand hills ran down to the river edge, it is true, but there — were plenty of shoals and shallows across which I could gallop Pornic, and find my way back to terra Jjwma by turning sharply to the right or the left. — As I led Pornic over the sands I was startled by the — faint pop of a rifle across the river; and at thesame — - moment a bullet dropped with a Ae “whit” close _ to Pornic’s head. - _ There was no mistaking the nature of the ele —a regulation Martini- Hetry “picket.” About — five hundred yards away a country-boat was an- chored in midstream; and a jet of smoke drifting — away from its bows in the still morning air showed me whence the delicate attention had come. Was ever a respectable gentleman in such an impasse? — The treacherous sand slope allowed no escape from — a spot which I had visited most involuntarily, and a - promenade on the river frontage was the signal for. a bombardment from some insane native in a boat. | THE STRANGE RIDE. 41 Tm afraid that I lost my temper very much in- deed. Another bullet reminded me that I had better save my breath to cool my porridge ; and I retreated hastily up the sands and back to the horseshoe, where I saw that the noise of the rifle had drawn sixty-five human beings from the badger-holes which [ had up till that point supposed to be untenanted. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of spectators —about forty men, twenty women, and one child who could not have been more than five years old. They were all scantily clothed in that salmon-colored cloth which one associates with Hindu mendicants, and, at first sight, gave me the impression of a band of loathsome fakirs. The filth and repulsiveness of the assembly were beyond all description, and I shuddered to think what their life in the badger- holes must be. Even in these days, when local self-government has destroyed the greater part of a native’s respect for a Sahib, I have been accustomed toa certain amount of civility from my inferiors, and on ap- proaching the crowd naturally expected that there would be some recognition of my presence. Asa matter of fact there was; but it was by no means what I had look for. The ragged crew actually laughed at me-—such laughter I hope I may never hear again. They cackled, yelled, whistled, and howled as I walked into their midst; some of them literally throwing themselves down on the ground in convulsions of AD. THE STRANGE RIDE. unholy mirth. Inamoment I had let go Pornic’s head, and, irritated beyond expression at the morn- ing’s adventure, commenced cuffing those nearest to me with all the force I could. The wretches — dropped under my blows like nine-pins, and the laughter gave place to wails for mercy ; while those yet untouched clasped me round the knees, implor- ing me in all sorts of uncouth tongues to spare them. In the tumult, and just when I was feeling very much ashamed of myself for having thus easily given away to my temper, a thin, high voice mur-_ mured in English from behind my shoulder :— “Sahib! Sahib! Do you not know me? Sahib, it is Gunga Dass, the telegraph-master.” | I spun round quickly and faced the speaker. Gunga Dass (I have, of course, no hesitation in — mentioning the man’s real name) I had known four years before as a Deccanee Brahmin lent by the Punjab Government to one of the Khalsia States. He was in charge of a branch telegraph-office there, and when I had Jast met him was a jovial, full- stomached, portly Government servant with a mar- velous capacity for making bad puns in English—— a peculiarity which made me remember him long after I had forgotten his services to me in his official capacity. It is seldom that a Hindu makes Eng- lish puns. Now, however, the man was changed beyond all 2 recognition. Cicte ae, stomach, slate-colored continuations, and unctuous speech were all gone. I looked at a withered skeleton, turbanless andl ; THE STRANGE RIDE. 43 almost naked, with long matted hair and deep-set codfish-eyes. But for a crescent-shaped scar on the left cheek—the result of an accident for which I was responsible—I should never have known him. But it was indubitably Gunga Dass, and—for this I was thankful—an English-speaking native who might at least tell me the meaning of all that I had gone through that day. The crowd retreated to some distance as I turned towards the miserable figure, and ordered him to show me some method of escaping from the crater. He held a freshly plucked crow in his hand, and in reply to my question climbed slowly on a platform of sand which ran in front of the holes, and com- menced lighting a fire therein silence. Dried bents, sand-poppies, and driftwood burn quickly; and I derived much consolation from the fact that he lit them with an ordinary sulphur-match. When they were in a bright glow, and the crow was neatly spitted in front thereof, Gunga Dass began without a word of preamble :— “There are only two kinds of men, Sar. The alive and the dead. When you are dead you are dead, but when you are alive you live.” (Here the erow demanded his attention for an instant as it twirled before the fire in danger of being burnt to a cinder.) “If you die at home and do not die when you come to the ghat to be burnt you come here.” The nature of the reeking village was made plain now, and all that I had known or read of the gro- 44 THE STRANGE RIDE. tesque and the horrible paled before the fact just — communicated by the ex-Brahmin, Sixteen years ago, when I first landed in Bombay, I had been told by a wandering Armenian of the existence, somewhere in India, of a place to which such — Hindus as had the misfortune to recover from trance — or catalepsy were conveyed and kept, and I rec- — ollect laughing heartily at what I was then pleased to consider a traveler’s tale. Sitting at the bottom — of the sand-trap, the memory of Watson’s Hotel, © with its swinging punkahs, white-robed attendants, and the sallow-faced Armenian, rose up in my mind — as vividly as a photograph, and I burst into a loud fit of laughter. The contrast was too absurd ! s Gunga Dass, as he bent over the unclean bird, © watched me oubiosly: Hindus seldom laugh, and : his surroundings were not such as to move Gunga — Dass to any undue excess of hilarity. He ven cead e the crow solemnly from the wooden spit and as — solemnly devoured it. Then he continued his story, which I give in his own words :— | “ In epidemics of the cholera you are carried to 2 be burnt almost before you are dead. When you — come to the riverside the cold air, perhaps, makes you alive, and then, if you are only little alive, mud — is put on your nose and mouth and you die conclu. sively. If you are rather more alive, more mud is put; but if you are too lively they let you go and — take you away. I was too lively, and made protes- _ tation with anger against the indignities that they endeavored to press upon me. In those days I was — i OR PO te tte + 4 — S ast rng ‘ THE STRANGE RIDE. 45 Brahmin and proud man. Now Iam dead man and _eat”—here he eyed the well-gnawed breast bone with the first sign of emotion that I had seen in him since we met—‘ crows, and other things. They took me from my sheets when they saw that I was too lively and gave me medicines for one week, and I survived successfully. Then they sent me by rail from my placeto Okara Station, with a man to take care of me; and at Okara Station we met two other men, and they conducted we three on camels, in the night, from Okara Station to this place, and they propelled me from the top to the bottom, and the other two succeeded, and I have been here ever since two and ahalf years. Once I was Brahmin and proud man, and now [I eat crows.” _“ There is no way of getting out?” None of what kind at all. When I first came I made experiments frequently and all the others also, but we have always succumbed to the sand which is precipitated upon our heads.” “But surely,’ I broke in at this point, “ the river- front is open, and it is worth while dodging the bullets; whileat night ”— [had already matured a rough plan of escape which a natural instinct of selfishness forbade me _ sharing with Gunga Dass. He, however, divined my unspoken thought almost as soon as it was formed ; and, to my intense astonishment, gave vent to a long low chuckle of derision—the laughter, be it understood, of a superior or at least of an equal. You will not ”—he had dropped the Sir com- a 46 THE STRANGE RIDE. pletely after his opening sentence—“make any escape that way. But you can try. Ihave tried. Once only.” The sensation of nameless terror and abject fear which I had in vain attempted to strive against overmastered me completely. My long fast—it was — now close upon ten o’clock, and I had eaten nothing since tiffin on the previous day—combined with the violent and unnatural agitation of the ride, had ex- hausted me, and I verily believe that, for a few 3 minutes, I acted as one mad. I hurled myself against the pitiless sand-slope. JI ran round the base — of the crater, blaspheming and praying by turns. I crawled out among the sedges of the river-front, only to be driven back each time in an agony of — nervous dread by the rifle-bullets which cut up the ~ sand round me—for I dared not face the death of a mad dog among that hideous crowd—and finally © fell, spent and raving, at the curb of the well. No — one had taken the slightest notice of an exhibition — which makes me blush hotly even when I think of — it now. ; Two or three men trod on my canta body as — they drew water, but they were evidently used to — this sort of thing, and had no time to waste upon — me. The situation was humiliating. Gunga Dass, — indeed, when he had banked the embers of his fire — with sand, was at some pains to throw half a cup- ful of fetid water over my head, an attention for which I could have fallen on my knees and thanked him, but he was laughing all the while in the sam THE STRANGE RIDE. AT -mirthless, wheezy key that greeted me on my first attempt to force the shoals. And so, in a semi- comatose condition, I lay till noon. Then, being only a man after all, I felt hungry, and intimated as much to Gunga Dass, whom I had begun to regard ~ as my natural protector. Following the impulse of the outer world when dealing with natives, I put my hand into my pocket anddrew out four annas. The absurdity of the gift struck me at once, and I was about to replace the money. Gunga Dass, however, was of a different opinion. “Give me the money,” said he; “all you have, or I will get help, and we will kill you!” All this as if it were the most natural thing in the world! A Briton’s first impulse, I believe, is to guard the contents of his pockets; but a moment’s re- flection convinced me of the futility of differing with the one man who had it in his power to make me comfortable ; and with whose help it was pos- sible that [might eventually escape from the crater. I gave him all the money in my possession, Rs. 9- 8-5—nine rupees eight annas and five pie—for I always keep small change as bakshish when I am in camp. Gunga Dass clutched the coins, and hid them at once in his ragged loin-cloth, his expression changing to something diabolical as he looked round to assure himself that no one had observed us. “ Now I will give you something to eat,” said he. What pleasure the possession of my money could have afforded him I am unable to say ; but inasmuch as it did give him evident delight, I was not sorry 4g THE STRANGE RIDE. that I had parted with it so readily, for I had no oo doubt that he would have had me killed if I had = refused. One does not protest against the vagarics of a den of wild beasts; and my companions were — : lower than any beasts. While I devoured what Gunga Dass had provided, a coarse chapatt: and a = cupful of the foul well-water, the people showed not the faintest sign of curiosity—that curiosity which — is so rampant, as a rule, in an Indian village. : a I could even fancy that they despised me. Atall events they treated me with the most chilling indif.= ference, and Gunga Dass was nearly as bad. I plied ie with questions about the terrible village, and received extremely unsatisfactory answers. So far as I could gather, it had been in existence 3 from time immemorial—whence I concluded that it was at least a century old—and during that time no — s one had ever been known to escape fromit. [I[had to control myself here with both hands, lest the blind terror should lay hold of me a second time and drive me raving round the crater.] Gunga Dass took a malicious pleasure in emphasizing this _ point and in watching me wince. Nothing that I could do would induce him to tell me who the mys- terious “ They” were. = “Tt is so ordered,” he would reply, “and I do not yet know any one vie has disobeyed the orders.” “Only wait till my servants find that 1 am miss- : 2 ing,’ I retorted, “and I promise you that this place @ oan shall be Alesecd off the face of the earth, and Mie give you a lesson in civility, too, my friend.” Ee aS THE STRANGE RIDE. 49 ‘Your servants would be torn in pieces before they came near this place; and, besides, you are dead, my dear friend. It is not your fault, of - course, but none the less you are dead and buried.” At irregular intervals supplies of food, I was told, were dropped down from the land side into the amphitheater, and the inhabitants fought for them like wild beasts. When a man felt his death com- ing on he retreated to his lair and died there. The body was sometimes dragged out of the hole and thrown on to the sand, or allowed to rot where it lay. The phrase “thrown on to the sand” caught mv attention, and I asked Gunga Dass whether this sort of thing was not likely to breed a pestilence. “That,” said he, with another of his wheezy chuckles, “you may see for yourself subsequently. You will have much time to make observations.” Whereat, to his great delight, I winced once more and hastily continued the conversation :—“ And how do you live here from day to day? What do you do?” The question elicited exactly the same answer as before—coupled with the information that “ this place is like your European heaven ; there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.” | Gunga Dass had been educated at a Mission School, and, as he himself admitted, had he only changed his religion “like a wise man,” might have avoided the living grave which was now his portion. But as long asI was with him I fancy he was happy. 4 50 THE STRANGE RIDE. Here was a Sahib, a representative of the domi- nant race, helpless as a child and completely at the mercy of his native neighbors. In a deliberate lazy — way he set himself to torture me as a school-boy would devote a rapturous half-hour to watching the agonies of an impaled beetle, or as a ferret in a blind burrow might glue himself comfortably to the | neck of arabbit. The burden of his conversation was that there was no escape “of no kind what- ever,’ and that I should stay here till I died and was “thrown on to the sand.” If it were possible to forejudge the conversation of the Damned on the advent of a new soul in their abode, I should say that they would speak as Gunga Dass did to me — throughout that long afternoon. I was powerless to protest or answer ; all my energies being devoted - to a struggle against the inexplicable terror that threatened to overwhelm me again and again. I — can compare the feeling to nothing except the strug- gles of a man against the overpowering nausea of the Channel passage—only my agony was of the spirit and infinitely more terrible. As the day wore on, the inhabitants began to ap- pear in full strength to catch the rays of the after- noon sun, which were now sloping in at the mouth of the crater. They assembled in little knots, and talked among themselves without even throwing a glance in my direction. About four o’clock, as far as I could judge, Gunga Dass rose and dived into his lair for a moment, emerging with a live crow in _ his hands. The wretched bird was in a most drag- { THE STRANGE RIDE. 51 gled and deplorable condition, but seemed to be in no way afraid of its master. Advancing cautiously to the river-front, Gunga Dass stepped from tussock to tussock until he had reached a smooth patch of sand directly in the line of the boat’s fire. The occupants of the boat took no notice. Here he stopped, and, with a couple of dexterous turns of the wrist, pegged the bird on its back with out- stretched wings. As was only natural, the crow began to shriek at once and beat the air with its claws. Ina few seconds the clamor had attracted the attention of a bevy of wild crows on a shoal a ' few hundred yards away, where they were discuss- ing something that looked like a corpse. Half a dozen crows flew over at once to see what was going on, and also, as it proved, to attack the pinioned bird. Gunga Dass, who had lain down on a tussock, motioned to me to be quiet, though I fancy this was a needless precaution. In a moment, and before I could see how it happened, a wild crow, who had grappled with the shrieking and helpless bird, was entangled in the latter’s claws, swiftly disengaged by Gunga Dass, and pegged down beside its com- panion in adversity. Curiosity, it seemed, over- powered the rest of the flock, and almost before Gunga Dass and I had time to withdraw to the tus- sock, two more captives were struggling in the up- turned claws of the decoys. . So the chase—if I can give it so dignified a name—continued until Gunga Dass had captured seven crows. Five of them he throttled at once, reserving two for further opera- 52 THE STRANGE RIDE. (7 tions oe day. I was a good deal impressed b: this, to me, novel method of securing food, and com- plimented Gunga Dass on his. skill. aie a “It is nothing to do,” said he. * To-morrow you must do it for me. You are stronger than J am.” This calm assumption of superiority upset: 1 me wc a a little, and I answered peremptorily :—“ Indeed, — you old ruffian! What do you think I have given : you money for?” S “Very well,’ was the unmoved tere Pe Por: : haps not to-morrow, nor the day after, nor subse- — quently ; but in the end, and for many years, you will catch crows and eat crows, and you will thank your European God that you have crows to > eateh and eat.” | I could have cheerfully strancied hind ee this s x but judged it best under the circumstances to smother my resentment. An hour later I was eating one of the crows; and, as Gunga Dass had said, thanking” my God that I had a crow to eat. Never as long as I live shall I forget that evening meal. The whole population were squatting on the hard sand platform opposite their dens, huddled over tiny fires of refuse and dried rushes. Death, having once laid his hand upon these men and forborne to strike, seemed to stand aloof from them now; for most of our company were old men, bent a worn and twisted with years, and women aged to all appear- ance as the Fates themselves. They sat together i In knots and talked—God only knows what they 1 found to discuss—in low equable tones, curiously i in con THE STRANGE RIDE. 53 trast to the strident babble with which natives are accustomed to make day hideous. Now and then an access of that sudden fury which had possessed me in the morning would lay hold on a man or woman; and with yells and imprecations the sufferer would attack the steep slope until, baffled and bleed- ing, he fell back on the platform incapable of moy- _ ingalimb. The others would never even raise their eyes when this happened, as men too well aware of the futility of their fellows’ attempts and wearied with their useless repetition. I saw four such out- bursts in the course of that evening. Gunga Dass took an eminently business-like view of my situation, and while we were dining—I can afford to laugh at the recollection now, but it was painful enough at the time—propounded the terms on which he would consent to “do” forme. My nine rupees eight annas, he argued, at the rate of three annas a day, would provide me with food for fifty-one days, or about seven weeks ; that is to say, he would be willing to cater for me for that length of time. At the end of it I was to look after my- self. For a further consideration—vdelicet my boots—he would be willing to allow me to occupy the den next to his own, and would supply me with as much dried grass for bedding as he could spare. “ Very well, Gunga Dass,” I replied; ‘ to the first terms I cheerfully agree, but, as there is nothing on earth to prevent my killing you as you sit here and taking everything that you have ” (I thought of the two invaluable crows at the time), “I flatly refuse 54. THE STRANGE RIDE. to give on my boots and shall take whichever den ~ IT please.” The stroke was a bold one, and I was glad when I saw that it had succeeded. Gunga Dass changed — his tune immediately, and disavowed all intention of asking for my boots. At the time it didnot strike — me as at all strange that I, a Civil Engineer, a man of thirteen years’ standing in the Service, and, I trust, an average Englishman, should thus calmly threaten murder and violence against the man who had, for a consideration it is true, taken me under his wing. I had left the world, it seemed, for cen- — turies. I was as certain then as] am now of my — own existence, that in the accursed settlement there was no law save that of the strongest ; that the liv- ing dead men had thrown behind them every canon 4 of the world which had cast them out; and that I had to depend for my own life on my strength and vigilance alone. The crew of the ill-fated Migno- a nette are the only men who would understand my frame of mind. “ At present,’ I argued to myself, “1 am strong and a match for six of these wretches. It is imperatively necessary that I should, for my 4 own sake, keep both health and strength until the = hour of my release comes—if it ever. does.” Fortified with these resolutions, I ate and drank “4 as much as I could, and made Gunes Dass under- stand that I intended to be his master, and that the least sign of insubordination on his part would be visited with the only punishment I had it in my power to inflict sudden and violent death. Shortly - THE STRANGE RIDE. 55 after this Lwent to bed. That is to say, Gunga Dass gave me a double armful of dried bents which I thrust down the mouth of the lair to the right of his, and followed myseif, feet foremost; the hole running about nine feet into the sand with a slight downward inclination, and being neatly shored with timbers. From my den, which faced the river-front, I was able to watch the waters of the Sutlej flowing past under the light of a young moon and compose myself to sleep as best I might. The horrors of that night I shall never forget. My den was nearly as narrow as a coffin, and the sides had been worn smooth and greasy by the con- tact of innumerable naked bodies, added to which it smelled abominably. Sleep was altogether out of question to one in my excited frame of mind. As the night wore on, it seemed that the entire amphi- theater was filled with legions of unclean devils that, trooping up from the shoals below, mocked the unfortunates in their lairs. Personally I am not of an imaginative temper- ament,—very few Engineers are,—but on that occa- sion [ was as completely prostrated with nervous terror asany woman. After halfan hour or so, how- ever, [ was able once more to calmly review my chances of escape. Any exit by the steep sand walls was, of course, impracticable. I had been thoroughly convinced of thissome time before. It was possible, just possible, that I might, in the uncertain moon- light, safely run the gauntlet of the rifle shots. _ The place was so full of terror for me that I was 56 THE STRANGE RIDE. ae prepared to undergo any risk inleaving it. Imagine my delight, then, when after creeping stealthily to the river-front I found that the infernal boat was not there. My freedom lay before me in the next — few steps! : By walking out to the first sielion pool that lay a at the foot of the projecting left horn of the horse- — shoe, I could wade across, turn the flank of the — crater and make my way inland. Without a moment’s hesitation I marched briskly past the tus- _ socks where Gunga Dass had snared the crows, and out in the direction of the smooth white sud be- _yond. My first step from the tufts of dried grass — showed me how utterly futile was any hope of es — cape; for, as I put my foot down, I felt an inde- scribable drawing, sucking motion “i the sand below. Another moment and my leg was swallowed up nearly to the knee. In the moonlight the whole surface of the sand seemed to be shaken with dey- ilish delight at my disappointment. 1 struggled clear, sweating with terror and exertion, back to the Sacpck behind me and fell on my face. <4 My only means of escape from the semicircle was a ~ protected with a quicksand! = How long I lay I have not the faintest iden: but. I was roused at last by the malevolent chiki of Gunga Dass at my ear. ‘I would advise you, Pro- tector of the Poor ” (the ruffian was speaking Eng- lish) “to return to your house. It is unhealthy to lie down here. Moreover, when the boat returns, you will most certainly be rifled at.” He stood THE STRANGE RIDE. 57 over me in the dim light of the dawn, chuckling and laughing to himself. Suppressing my first impulse to catch the man by the neck and throw him on to the quicksand, I rose sullenly and followed him to the platform below the burrows. Suddenly, and futilely as I thought while I spoke I asked :—“ Gunga Dass, what is the good of the boat if I can’t get out anyhow?” I recollect that. even in my deepest trouble I had been speculating vaguely on the waste of ammunition in guarding an already well protected foreshore. Gunga Dass laughed again and made answer :— “They have the boat only in daytime. It is for the reason that there isa way. Ihope weshall have the pleasure of your company for much longer time. It is a pleasant spot when you have been here some years and eaten roast crow long enough.” I staggered, numbed and helpless, towards the fetid burrow allotted to me, and fell asleep. An hour or so later I was awakened by a piercing scream—the shrill, high-pitched scream of a horse in pain. Those who have once heard that will never forgot the sound. I found some little dif- ficulty in scrambling out of the burrow. When I was in the open, I saw Pornic, my poor old Pornic, lying dead on the sandy soil. How they had killed him I cannot guess. Gunga Dass explained that horse was better than crow, and “ greatest good of greatest number is political maxim. We are now Republic, Mister Jukes, and you are entitled to a also die.” STRANGE RIDE. THE fair share of the beast. If you like, we will pass 2 a vote of thanks. Shall I propose?” ve Yes, we were a Republic indeed! A Ropable of : wild beasts penned at the bottom of a pit, to eat and fight and sleep till we died. I attempted no- protest of any kind, but sat down and stared at the © hideous sight in front of me. In less time almost than it takes me to write this, Pornic’s body was divided, in some unclean way or other; the men and women had dragged the fragments on to the platform and were preparing their morning meal. — Gunga Dass cooked mine. The almost irresistible — impulse to fly at the sand walls until I was wearied laid hold of me afresh, and I had to struggle against it with all my might. Gunga Dass was offensively jocular till I told him that if he addressed another remark of any kind whatever to me I should strangl him where he sat. This silenced him till silence became ‘insupportable, and I bade oes say some thing. “ You will live here till you die like the othel Feringhi,’ he said coolly, watching me over the fragment of gristle that he was gnawing. “What other Sahib, you swine? Speak at ones and don’t stop to tell me a lie.” | . ‘“‘ He is over there,’ answered Gunga Dass, point ing to a burrow ionth about four doors to the lef of my own. “You can see for yourself. He died in the burrow as you will die, and I will die, and : y as all these men and women and the one child wil THE STRANGE RIDE. 59 “ For pity’s sake tell me all you know about him. Who was he? When did he come, and when did he die?’ . This appeal was a weak step on my part. Gunga Dass only leered and replied :—‘“ I will not—unless you give me something first.” Then I recollected where I was, and struck the _ man between the eyes, partially stunning him. He Ris 2 : a tS stepped down from the platform at once, and, cring- ing and fawning and weeping and attempting to embrace my feet, led me round to the burrow which he had indicated. “1 know nothing whatever about the gentleman. Your God be my witness that Ido not. He was as anxious to escape as you were, and he was shot from the boat, though we all did all things to prevent him from attempting. He was shot here.” Gunga Dass laid his hand on his lean stomach and bowed to the earth. “ Well, and what then? Go on!” “And then—and then, Your Honor, we car- ried him into his house and gave him water, and put wet cloths on the wound, and he laid down in his house and gave up the ghost.” “In how long? In how long?” “ About half an hour after he received his wound. I call Vishn to witness,” yelled the wretched man, “that I did everything for him. Everything which was possible, that I did!” He threw himself down on the ground and clasped my ankles. But I had my doubts about Gunga 60. THE STRANGE RIDE. Dass’s benevolence, and kicked him off as he ” Be protesting. | “T believe you robbed him of everything he had. But I can find out in a minute or two. How long was the Sahib here ?”’ “Nearly a year and ahalf. I think he must have 3 gone mad. But hear me swear, Protector of the Poor! Won’t Your Honor hear me swear that I ~ never touched an article that belonged to him? — What is Your Worship going to do?” I had taken Gunga Dass by the waist and had PHAN eo AER ONTES hauled him on to the platform opposite the deserted — burrow. As I did so I thought of my wretched : fellow-prisoner’s unspeakable misery among all these — horrors for eighteen months, and the final agony of — dying like a rat in a hole, with a bullet-wound in ~ the stomach. Gunga Dass fancied I was going to — kill him and howled pitifully. The rest of the popu- lation, in the plethora that follows a full flesh meal, ~ watched us without stirring. “Go inside, Gunga Dass,” said I, “and fetch iby out.” I was feeling sick and faint with horror now. : Gunga Dass ne rolled off the platform and howled aloud. “ But [am Brahmin, Sahib—a high- caste Brahmin. _ By your soul, by your father’s soul, do not make me > do this ine! ts “Brahmin or no Brahmin, by my a and my father’s soul, in you go!” I ae and, seizing him — by the shoulders, I crammed his head tate the mouth — THE STRANGE RIDE. 61 . of the burrow, kicked the rest of him in, and, sitting down, covered my face with my hands. At the end of a few minutes I heard a rustle and a creak; then Gunga Dass in a sobbing, choking whisper speaking to himself; then a soft thud—and IT uncovered my eyes. The dry sand had turned the corpse entrusted to its keeping into a yellow-brown mummy. [ told Gunga Dass to stand off while I examined it. The body—clad in an olive-green hunting-suit much stained and worn, with leather pads on the shoulders —was that of a man between thirty and forty, above middle height, with light, sandy hair, long mustache, and a rough unkempt beard. The left canine of the upper jaw was missing, and a portion of the lobe of the right ear was gone. On the second finger of the left hand was aring—a shield-shaped bloodstone set in gold, with a monogram that might have been either “B.K.” or “B.L.” On the third finger of — the right hand was a silver ring in the shape of a coiled cobra, much worn and tarnished. Gunga Dass deposited a handful of trifles he had picked out of the burrow at my feet, and covering the face of the body with my handkerchief, I turned to examine these. I give the full list in the hope that it may lead to the identification of the unfortunate man :— 1. Bowl of a briarwood pipe, serrated at the edge ; much worn and blackened ; bound with string at the screw. 2. Two patent-lever keys; wards of both broken, 62 - THE STRANGE RIDE. 3. Tortoise-shell-handled penknife, silver or nickel name-plate, marked with monogram “ B. K.? — 4, Envelope, post-mark undecipherable, bearing a Victorian stamp, addressed to “ Miss Mon— (rest illegible)—“ ham ”—“nt.” 5. Imitation crocodile-skin note-book Se pencil. : First forty-five pages blank ; four anda halfillegible; fifteen others filled with private memoranda relating chiefly to three persons—a Mrs. L. Singleton, ab breviated several times to “Lot Single,” “Mrs. § May,” and “ Garmison,” referred to in places a a “ Jerry” or “Jack.” : 6. Handle of small-sized hinting ee “Blad snapped short. Buck’s horn, diamond-cut, with swivel and ring on the butt 5 fragment of cotton cord attached. eS It'must not be supposed that I inventoried al these things on the spot as fully as I have here written them down. The note-book first attracte my attention, and I put it in my pocket with view to studying it lateron. The rest of the article: I conveyed to my burrow safety’s sake, and there being a methodical man, I inventoried ther. I then returned to the corpse ae ordered Gunga Dass tc help me carry it out to the river front. While w were engaged in this, the exploded shell of an old brown cartridge dropped out of one of the pockets and rolled at my feet. Gunga Dass had not seeni and I fell to thinking that a man does not carry ex- ploded cartridge-cases, especially ‘“ browns,” which will not bear loading twice, about with a whe THE STRANGE RIDE. 63 shooting. In other words, that cartridge-case had been fired inside the. crater. Consequently there. - must be a gun somewhere. I was on the verge of asking Gunga Dass, but checked myself, knowing that he would lie. We laid the body down on the edge of the quicksand by the tussocks. It was my - intention to push it out and let it be swallowed up —the only possible mode of burial that I could think of. I ordered Gunga Dass to go away. Then I gingerly put the corpse out on the quick- sand. In doing so, it was lying face downward, I tore the frail and rotten khaki shooting-coat open, disclosing a hideous cavity in- the back. I have already told you that the dry sand had, as it were, mummified the body. A moment’s glance showed that the gaping hole had been caused by a gunshot wound; the gun must have been fired with the muzzle almost touching the back. The shooting- coat, being intact, had been drawn over the body after death, which must have been instantaneous. The secret of the poor wretch’s death was plain to me in a flash. Someone of the crater, presumably Gunga Dass, must have shot him with his own gun —the gun that fitted the brown cartridges. He had never attempted to escape in the face of the rifle-fire from the boat. F I pushed the corpse out ‘hastily, and saw it sink from sight literally in a few seconds. I shuddered as I watched. In a dazed, half-conscious way I turned to peruse the notebook. A stained and dis- colored slip of paper had been inserted between the 64. THE STRANGE RIDE. binding and the back, and dropped out as I opened the pages. This is what it contained :—‘ Pour out from crow-clump: three left; nineout; two right ; three back ; two left; fourteen out ; two left; seven out; one left; nine back; two right ; su back ; four right ; seven back.” The paper had been burnt and charred at the edges. What it meant I could — not understand. I sat down on the dried bents — turning it over and over between my fingers, until I was aware of Gunga Dass standing immediately — behind me with glowing eyes and outstretched hands. : “Have you got>it?” he panted. “ Will you not let me look at it also? I swear that I will re- 4 turn it.” “Got what? Return what?” I asked. “That which you have in your hands. It will help us both.” He stretched out his long, bird-like talons, trembling with eagerness. “‘T could never find it,’ he continued. ‘‘ He had secreted it about his person. Therefore I shot him, but nevertheless I was unable to obtain it.” Gunga Dass had quite forgotten his little fiction about the rifle-bullet. I received the information perfectly calmly. Morality is blunted by consorting with the Dead who are alive. | “What on earth are you raving about? What is it you want me to give you! ae “The piece of paper in the note-book. It will help us both. Oh, you fool! You fool! Can you not see what it will do for us? We shall escape!” 3 FON pi see reer i cna ir sae ened UAB oe ee EN IS an ge Es ek THE STRANGE RIDE. 65 His voice rose almost to a scream, and he danced with excitement before me. I own I was moved at the chance of getting away. “Don’t skip! Explain yourself. Do you mean to say that this slip of paper will help us? What does it mean?” “Read it aloud! Read it aloud! I beg and I pray to you to read it aloud.” I did so. Gunga Dass listened delightedly, and drew an irregular line in the sand with his fingers. “See now! It was the length of his gun-barrels without the stock. I have those barrels. Four gun-barrels out from the place where I caught crows. Straight out ; do you follow me? Then three left —Ah! how well remember when that man worked it out night after night. Then nine out, and so on. Out is always straight before you across the quick- sand. He told me so before I killed him.” “ But if you knew all this why didn’t you get out before ? ” “TI did not know it. He told me that he was working it out a year and a half ago, and how he was working it out night after night when the boat had gone away, and he could get-out near the quick- sand safely. Then he said that we would get away together. But I was afraid that he would leave me behind one night when he had worked it all out, and so I shot him. Besides, it is not advisable that the men who once get in here should escape. Only I, and Zam a Brahmin.” The prospect of escape had brought Gunga Dass’s F) 66 "HE STRANGE RIDE. caste back to him. He stood up, walked about an gesticulated violently. Eventually I managed t make him talk soberly, and he told me how this Englishman had spent six months night after night in exploring, inch by inch, the passage across the quicksand ; how he had declared it to be simplicity — itself up to within about twenty yards of the river bank after turning the flank of the left horn of the horseshoe. This much he had evidently not com-— pleted when Gunga Dass shot him with his own gun. In my frenzy of delight at the possibilities of escape I recollect shaking hands effusively with Gunga Dass, after we had decided that we were to make an attempt to get away that very night. It was weary work waiting throughout _ after-_ noon. 2 About ten o’clock, as'far as I could idee a the Moon had just risen above the lip of the crater Gunga Dass made a move for his burrow to brin out one gun-barrels whereby to measure our path ‘All the other wretched inhabitants had retired t their lairs long ago. The guardian boat drifte downstream some hours before, and we were utterl: alone by the crow-clump. Gunga Dass, while carry ing the gun-barrels, let slip the piece of paper whic was to be our guide. I stooped down hastily t recover it, and, as I did so, I was aware that th diabolical Brahmin was aiming a violent blow the back of my head with the gun-barrels. It wa too late to turn round. I must have received th blow somewhere on the nape of my neck, : S THE STRANGE RIDE. 67 dred thousand fiery stars danced before my eyes, and I fell forward senseless at the edge of the quick- sand. When I recovered consciousness, the Moon was going down, and I was sensible of intolerable pain in the back of my head. Gunga Dass had disap- peared and my mouth was full of blood. I laid down again and prayed that I might die without more ado. Then the unreasoning fury which I have before mentioned laid hold upon me, and I staggered inland towards the walls of the crater. It seemed that some one was calling to me in a whisper— “Sahib! Sahib! Sahib!” exactly as my bearer used to call me in the mornings. I fancied that I was delirious until a handful of sand fell at my feet. Then I looked up and saw a head peering down into the amphitheater—the head of Dunnoo, my dog-boy who attended to my collies. As soon as he had attracted my attention, he held up his hand and showed a rope. I motioned, staggering to and fro the while, that he should throw it down. It was a couple of leather punkah-ropes knotted together, _ with a loop at one end. I slipped the loop over my head and under my arms; heard Dunnoo urge some- thing forward; was conscious that I was being drag- ged, face downward, up the steep sand slope, and the next instant found myself choked and half faint- ing on the sand hills overlooking the crater. Dun- noo, with his face ashy gray in the moonlight, im- plored me not to stay, but to get back to my tent at once. rae 68 ‘THE STRANGE RIDE. It seems that he had tracked Pong S footprint fourteen miles across the sands to the crater; had returned and told my servants, who flatly refused to meddle with any one, white or black, once fallen into the hideous Village of the Dead; whereupon Dunnoo had taken one of my ponies and a couple of punkah ropes, returned to the crater, and hauled me out as I have described. To cut a long story short, Dunnoo is now my per- sonal servant on a gold mohur a month—a sum which I still think far too little for the services he has rendered. Nothing on earth will induce me to go near that devilish spot again, or to reveal its” whereabouts more clearly than I have done. O: Gunga Dass I have never found a trace, nor do I wish to do. My sole motive in giving this to be published is the hope that some one may possibly identify, from the details and the inventory which I have given above, the corpse of the man in the: olive-green hunting-suit. | | THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. — ‘¢ Brother to a Prince and fellow to a beggar if he be found worthy.” Tue Law, as quoted, lays down a fair conduct of life, and one not easy to follow. Ihave been fellow to a beggar again and again under circumstances which prevented either of us finding out whether © the other was worthy. I have still to be brother to a Prince, though I once came near to kinship with what might have been a veritable King and was promised the reversion of a Kingdom—army, law- courts, revenue and policy all complete. But, to- day, I greatly fear that my King is dead, and if I - want a crown I must go and hunt it for myself. The beginning of everything was in a railway train upon the road to Mhow from Ajmir. There had been a Deficit in the Budget, which necessitated traveling, not Second-class, which is only half as dear as First-class, but by Intermediate, which is very awful indeed. There are no cushions in the Intermediate class, and the population are either 70 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. e Intermediate, which is Eurasian, or native, wh for a long night journey is nasty, or Lote which is amusing though intoxicated. Intermediates do not patronize refreshment. rooms. They carry their food in bundles and pots, and buy sweets from the native sweetmeat-sellers, and drink the roadside water. That is why in a hot weather Intermedi- ates are taken out of the carriages dead, and in all weathers are most properly looked joee upon. 4 My particular Intermediate happened to be empty — till I reached Nasirabad, when a huge gentleman in shirt-sleeves entered, and, following the custom o Intermediates, passed fis time of day. He was. wanderer and a vagabond like myself, but with a educated taste for whisky. He told tales of thing he had seen and done, of out-of-the-way corners of the Empire into which he had penetrated, and of a ventures in which he risked his life for a few days’ food. “If India was filled with men like you an me, not knowing more than the crows where they'd get their next day’s rations, it isn’t seventy millions of revenue the land would be paying—it’s seven hundred millions,” said he; and as I looked at h mouth and chin I was disposed to agree with him We talked politics—the politics of Loaferdom tha Sees things from the underside where the lath an plaster is not smoothed off—and we talked postal arrangements because my friend wanted to send a telegram back from the next station to Ajmir, whic is the turning-off place from the Bombay to th Mhow line as you travel westward. My friend ha THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 71 “no money beyond eight annas which he wanted for dinner, and I had no money at all, owing to the hitch in the Budget before mentioned. Further, I was going into a wilderness where, though I should resume touch with the Treasury, there were no telegraph offices. I was, therefore, unable to help him in any way. “We might threaten a Station-master, and make him send a wire on tick,” said my friend, “ but that’d mean inquiries for you and for me, and I’ve got my hands full these days. Did you say you are travel- ing back along this line within any days ? ” Within ten,” I said. “Can’t you make it eight?” said he. “ Mine is rather urgent business.” **T can send your telegram within ten days if that will save you,” I said. “T couldn’t trust the wire to fetch him, now I think of it. It’s this way. He leaves Delhi on the 23d for Bombay. That means he’ll be running through Ajmir about the night of the 23d.” “But I’m going into the Indian Desert,” I ex- plained. “Well and good,” said he. “You'll be changing at Marwar Junction to get into Jodhpore territory —you must do that—and he’ll be coming through Marwar Junction in the early morning of the 24th by the Bombay Mail. Can you be at Marwar Junction onthattime? ’*Twon’t beinconveniencing you because I know that there’s precious few pick- ings to be got out of these Central India States— 72 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. even though oy iene to be correspondent of the Z Backwoodsman.” a ‘“‘ Have you ever tried:that trick?” I asked. 7 “ Again and again, but the Residents find you out, — and then you get escorted to the Border before yow’ve 2 time to get your knife into them. But about my ~ friend here. I must give him a word o’ mouth to tell — him what’s come to me or else he won’t know where — to go. I would take it more than kind of you if you was to come out of Central India in time to catch him at Marwar Junction, and say to him :—‘ He has gone’ South for the week.’ He’ll know what means. He’s ~ a big man with a red beard, and a great swell he is. — You'll find him sleeping ties a gentleman with all — his luggage round him in a Second-class sonal ment. But don’t you be afraid. Slip down the window, and say:—‘He has gone South for the — week,’ and he’ll tumble. It’s only cutting your © time of stay in those parts by two days. I ask you, as a stranger—going to the West,” he said with emhpasis. “Where have you come from ?” said c a “From the East,” said he, “and I am hoping 3 that you will give him the message on the Squares for the sake of my Mother as well as your own.” — Englishmen are not usually softened by appeals — to the memory of their mothers, but for certai reasons, which will be fully apparent, I saw fit b agree. & “Ts more than a little matter,’ said he, “an that’s why Iask you todo it—and now I know that THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. Co can depend on you doing it. A Second-class car- riage at Marwar Junction, anda red-haired man asleep in it. You’ll be sure to remember. I get out at the next station, and I must hold on there till he comes or sends me what I want.” “Tl give the message if I catch him,” I said, “and for the sake of your Mother as well as mine Pll give you a word of advice. Don’t try to run the Central India States just now as the correspondent of the Lackwoodsman. There’s a real one knocking about here, and it might lead to trouble.” “Thank you,” said he simply, “ and when will the swinebe gone? I can’tstarve because he’s running my work. I wanted to get hold of the Degumber Rajah down here about his father’s widow, and give hima jump.” * What did he do to his father’s widow, then?” “ Filled her up with red pepper and slippered her to death as she hung from a beam. I found that out myself, and ’m the only man that would dare going into the State to get hush-money for it. They’ll try to poison me, same as they did in Chortumna when I went on the loot there. But you'll give the manat Marwar Junction my mes- sage ?” He got out at a little roadside station, and I reflected. I had heard, more than once, of men personating correspondents of newspapers and bleed- ing small Native States with threats of exposure, but I had never met any of the caste before. They lead a hard life, and generally die with great sud- 14 - THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. denness. The Native States have a wholesome — horror of English newspapers, which may throw light — on their peculiar methods of government, and do their — best to choke correspondents with champagne, or — drive them out of their mind with four-in-hand — barouches. They do not understand that nobody — cares a straw for the internal administration of the — Native States solong as oppression and crime are kept — within decent limits, and the ruler is not drugged, drunk, or diseased from one end of the year to the — other. Native States were created by Providence in order to supply picturesque scenery, tigers, and — tall-writing. They are the dark places of the earth © full of unimaginable cruelty, touching the Railway — and the Telegraph on one side, and, on the other, — the days of Harun-al-Raschid. When I left the train I did buisness with divers Kings, and in eight — days passed through many changes of life. Some-— times I wore dress-clothes and consorted with — Princes and Politicals, drinking from crystal and — eating from silver. Sometimes I lay out upon the — ground and devoured what I could get, from a plate — made of a flapjack, and drank the running water, — and slept under the same rug as my servant. It was all in the day’s work. ; Then I headed for the Great Indian Dacca upon & the proper date, as I had promised, and the night — Mail set me down at Marwar Junction, where a funny little, happy-go-lucky, native-managed rail way runs to Jodhpore. The Bombay Mail from Delhi makes a short halt at Marwar. She arrived THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 15 as I got in, and I had just time to hurry to her platform and go down the carriages. There was only one Second-class on the train. I slipped the window and looked down upon a flaming red beard, half covered by a railway rug. That was my man, fast asleep, and I dug him gently in theribs. He woke with a grunt and I saw his face in the light of the lamps. It was a great and shining face. “Tickets again?” said he. “No,” said I. “Iam to tell you that he is gone South for the week. He is gone South for the week! ” The train had begun to move out. Thered man rubbed his eyes. “He has gone South for the week,” he repeated. “ Now that’s just like his impidence. Did he say that I was to give you any- thing ?—’Cause I won’t.” “He didn’t,” I said and dropped away, and watched the red lights die out in the dark. It was horribly cold because the wind was blowing off the sands. I climbed into my own train—not an Inter- mediate Carriage this time—and went to sleep. If the man with the beard had given me a rupee I should have kept it as a memento of a rather curi- ous affair. But the consciousness of having done my duty was my only reward. Later on I reflected that two gentlemen like my . friends could not do any good if they foregathered and personated correspondents of newspapers, and might, if they “stuck up” one of the little rat-trap states of Central India or Southern Rajputana get 76 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. themselves into serious difficulties. I therefore to some trouble to describe them as accurately as | could remember to people who would be interester in deporting them; and succeeded, so I was la informed, in eee them headed Gare from t Degumber borders. : | Then I became respectable, and ratartigd fo. a: Office where there were no Kings and no incide except the daily manufacture of a newspaper. A newspaper office seems to attract every conceivabl sort of person, to the prejudice of discipline. Zen ana-mission ladies arrive, and beg that the Edit will instantly abandon all his duties to describe ; Christian prize-giving in a back-slum of a perfecth inaccessible village; Colonels who have been over. passed for commands sit down and sketch the out line of a series of ten, twelve, or twenty-four leadi articles on Seniority versus Selection; missionaries — Wish to know why they have not been permitted to escape from their regular vehicles of abuse and swear at a brother-missionary under special patronage of the editorial We; stranded theatrical companies troop up to explain that they cannot pay for their advertisements, but on their return from New Zea- land or Tahiti wi do so with interest ; inventors of patent punkah-pulling machines, carriage couplir and unbreakable swords and axle-trees call wi specifications in their pockets and hours at th disposal; tea-companies enter and elaborate th prospectuses with the office pens; secretaries ball-committees clamor to have the glories of t eS vin ‘ us — — , ae ¥ see THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. EE last dance more fully expounded; strange ladies rustle in and say :—“ I want a hundred lady’s cards printed at once, please,” which is manifestly part of an Editor’s duty; and every dissolute ruffian that ever tramped the Grand Trunk Road makes it his business to ask for employment as a proof-reader. And, all the time, the telephone-bell is ringing madly, and Kings are being killed on the Continent, and Empires are saying—“ Youw’re another,” and Mister Gladstone is calling down brimstone upon the British Dominions, and the little black copy- boys are’ whining, “kaa-pr chay-ha-yeh” (copy wanted) like tired bees, and most of the paper is as blank as Modred’s shield. But that is the amusing part of the year. There are other six months wherein none ever come to call, and the thermometer walks inch by inch up to the top of the glass, and the office is darkened to just about reading-light, and the press machines are red-hot of touch, and nobody writes anything but accounts of amusements in the Hill-stations, or obituary notices. Then the telephone becomes a tinkling terror, because it tells you of the sudden deaths of men and women that you knew intimately, and the prickly-heat covers you as with a garment, and you sit down and write :—“ A slight increase of sickness is reported from the Khuda Janta Khan District. The outbreak is purely sporadic in its nature, and, thanks to the energetic efforts of the District authorities, is now almost at an end. It is, however, with deep regret we record the death, etc.’ 78 | THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. Then the sickness really breaks out, and the less” recording and reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and the Foreman thinks that a daily paper reall ought to come out once in twenty-four hours, an all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle of their amusements say:—“Good gracious! Wh can’t the paper be apes I’m sure there’ plenty going on up here.” 4 That is the dark half of the moon, and, as th advertisements say, “must be oxporened te b appreciated.” a It was in that season, and a remarkably evil son | son, that the paper Beran running the last issue of the week on Saturday night, which is to say Sun- — day morning, after the custom of a London paper. This wasa a convenience, for immediately after the paper was put to bed, ae dawn would lowerthe thermometer from 96° to almost 84° for half an hour, q and in that chill—you have no idea how cold is 84° 4 on the grass until you begin to pray for it—a very tired man could set off to sleep ere the ae roused — him. q One Saturday night it was my none Juty to put the paper to bed alone. A King or courtier or a courtesan or a community was going to die or get a new Constitution, or do something that was im- 4 portant on the other side of the world, and the paper was to be held open till the ee possible minute in order to catch the telegram. It was ¢ : THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 79 pitchy black night, as stifling as a June night can _ be, and the Zoo, the red-hot wind from the westward, was booming among the tinder-dry trees and pre- tending that the rain was on its heels. Now and again a spot of almost boiling water would fall on the dust with the flop of a frog, but all our weary world knew that was only pretense. It was a shade cooler in the press-room than the office, so I sat there, while the type ticked and clicked, and the night-jars hooted at the windows, and the all but naked compositors wiped the sweat from their foreheads and called for water. The thing that was keeping us back, whatever it was, would not come off, though the Joo dropped and the last type was set, and the whole round earth stood still in the choking heat, with its finger on its lip to wait the event. J drowsed, and wondered whether the telegraph was a blessing, and whether this dying man, or struggling people, was aware of the in- convenience the delay was causing. ‘There was no special reason beyond the heat and worry to make tension, but, as the clock-hands crept up to three o'clock and the machines spun their fly-wheels two and three times to see that all was in order, before I said the word that would set them off, I could have shrieked aloud. Then the roar and rattle “of the wheels shivered the quiet into little bits. I rose to go away, but two men in white clothes stood in front of me. The first one said :—“ It’s him!” The second said : —“Soit is!” And they both laughed almost as 80 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. - ee loudly as the machinery roared, and mopped their foreheads. “ We see there was a light burning across the road and we were sleeping in that ditch there for coolness, and I said to my friend here, “The office is open. Let’s come along and speak to him as turned us back from the Degumber State,” said the smaller of the two. He was the man I had met in the Mhow train, and his fellow was the red bearded man of Marwar Junction. There was no mistaking the eyebrows of the one or the beard of the Siher 2 I was not pleased, because I wished to go tosleep, not to squabble with loafers. ‘ What do you want?’ I asked. “ Half an hour’s talk with you cool and contgee able, in the office,” said the red-bearded man. ‘f We'd like some drink—the Contrack doesn’t begin yet, Peachey, so you needn’t look—but what we really want is advice. We don’t wantmoney. We ask you as a favor, because you did usa bad turn about Degumber.”’ I led from the press-room to the stifling offic with the maps on the walls, and the red-haired man rubbed his hands. “ That’s something like,” said he. “This was the proper shop to come to. Now Sir, let me introduce to you Brother Peache Carnehan, that’s him, and Brother Daniel Dravot, that is me, and the less said about our professions the better, for we have been most things in ou time. Soldier, sailor, compositor, photograph proof-reader, street-preacher, and correspondents THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. gil the Backwoodsman when we thought the paper wanted one. Carnehanis sober, andsoam I. Look at us first and see that’s sure. It will save you cutting into my talk. We'll take one of your cigars apiece, and you shall see us light.” I watched the test. The men were absolutely sober, so I gave them each a tepid peg. “ Welland good,” said Carnehan of the eyebrows, wiping the froth from his mustache. “ Let me talk now, Dan. We have been all over India, mostly on foot. We have been boiler-fitters, engine-drivers, petty contractors, and all that, and we have decided that India isn’t big enough for such as us.” They. certainly were too big for the office. Dravot’s beard seemed to fill half the room and Carnehan’s shoulders the other half, as they sat on the big table. Carnehan continued :—“ The country isn’t half worked out because they, that governs it won’t let you touch it. They spend all their blessed time in governing it, and you can’t lift a spade, nor chip a rock, nor look for oil, nor anything like that without all the Government saying—‘ Leave it alone and let us govern.’ Therefore, such as it is, we will let it alone, and go away to some other place where a man isn’t crowded and can come to his own. Weare not little men, and there is nothing that we are afraid of except Drink, and we have signed a Contrack on that. Therefore, we are going away to be Kings.” “ Kings in our own right,” muttered Dravot. 2 ae of course,” Isaid. ‘“You’ve been tramp- 82 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. ing in the sun, and it’s a very warm night, and hadn’t you better sleep over the notion? Come to- morrow.” : “Neither drunk nor sunstruck,” said Dravot. We have slept over the notion half a year, and re- quire to see Books and Atlases, and we have de- cided that there is only one place now in the world that two strong men can Sar-a-whack. They call it Kafiristan. By my reckoning it’s the top right- hand corner of Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from Peshawar. They have twoand thirty heathen idols there, and we’ll be the thirty- third. It’s a mountainous country, and the women of those parts are very beautiful.” “‘ But that is provided against in the Contrack, ” said Carnehan. “ Neither Women nor Liqu-or, Daniel.” es “ And that’s all we know, except that no one has — gone there, and they fight and in any place where they fight a man who knows how to drill men can always bea King. We shall go to those parts and say to any King we find—‘ D’ you want to vanquish your foes?’ and we will show him how to drill men ; for that we know better than anything else. — Then we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty.” “Youll be cut to pieces before youre fifty miles across the Border,” I said. ‘“ You have to travel through Afghanistan to get to that country. It’s one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has been through it.. The people THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 83 are utter brutes, and even if you reached them you couldn’t do anything.” “That’s more like,’ said Carnehan. “If you could think us a little more mad we would be more pleased. We have come to you to know about this country, to read a book about it, and to be shown maps. We want you to tell us that we are fools and to show us your books.” He turned to the bookcases. “ Are you at all in earnest ?” I said. “A little,” said Dravot sweetly. “ As big a map as you have got, even if it’s all blank where Kafiris- tan is, and any books you’ve got. We can read, though we aren’t very educated.” I uncased the big thirty-two-miles-to-the-inch map of India, and two smaller Frontier maps, hauled down volume INF-KAN of the Ancyclopedia Brit- tanica, and the men consulted them. “See here!” said Dravot, his thumb on the map. “Up to Jagdallak, Peachey and me know the road. We was there with Roberts’s Army. We’ll have to turn off to the right at Jagdallak through Laghmann territory. Then weget among the hills—fourteen thousand feet—fifteen thousand—it will be cold work there, but it don’t look very far on the map.” I handed him Wood on the Sources of the Oxus. Carnehan was deep in the Encyclopedia. “They’re a mixed lot,” said Dravot reflectively ; “and it won’t help us to know the names of their tribes. The more tribes the more they’ll fight, and 84. THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. : the better for us. From Jagdallak to ee. Hmm!” ae “ But all the information about the country is as sketchy and inaccurate as can be,” I protested. “No one knows anything about it really. Here’s — the file of the ees Services’ Institute. Read — _ what Bellew says.” “a “Blow Bellew!” said Carnehan. “ Dan, they’re an all-fired lot of heathens, but this book ie gee they think they’re related to us English.” I smoked while the men pored over Raverty, Wood, the maps and the Encyclopedia. “There is no use your waiting,” said Dravot politely. “It’s about four o’clock now. We'll go before six o’clock if you want to sleep, and we won’t steal any of the papers. Don’t you sit up. We're two harmless lunatics, and if you come, to-morrow ~ evening, down to the Serai, we’ll say good-by to you.” “You are two fools,” I answered. ‘You'll be — turned back at the Frontier or cut up the minute — you set foot in Afghanistan. Do you want any money or a recommendation down-country ? I can help you to the chance of work next week.” ‘¢ Next week we shall be hard at work ourselves, thank you,” said Dravot. “It isn’t so easy being a — King as it looks. When we’ve got our Kingdom in — going order we'll let you know, and you can come up and help us to govern it.” “Would two lunatics make a Contrack like that 2 % said Carnehan, with subdued pride, showing me a greasy half-sheet of note- Me on which was writte THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 85 the following. I copied it, then and there, as a curiosity :— » This Contract between me and you persuing wit- nesseth in the name of God—Amen and so forth. _ (One) That me and iG will settle this matter together: i. e., to be Kings of Kapir- stan. (Two) That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any Woman black, white or brown, so as to get mixed up with one or the other harmful. (Three) That we conduct ourselves with dignity and discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him. Signed by you and me this day. Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan. Daniel Druvot. Both Gentlemen at Large. “There was no need for the last article,” said. Carnehan, blushing modestly ; “ but it looks regular. Now you know the sort of men that loafers are—we are loafers, Dan, until we get out of India—and do - you think that we would sign a Contrack like that unless we was in earnest? Wehave kept away from the two things that make life worth having.” “You won’t enjoy your lives much longer if you are going to try this idiotic adventure. Don’t set the office on fire,” I said, “and go away before nine o'clock.” 86 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. I left them still poring over the maps and making notes on the back of the “ Contrack.” “ Be sure to come downto the Serai to-morrow,” were en parting words. | The Kumbharsen Serai is the great four-square sink of humanity where the strings of camels and horses from the North load and unload. All the © nationalities of Central Asia may be found there, and most of the folk of India proper. Balkh and Bokhara there meet Bengal and Bombay, and try to draw eye-teeth. You can buy ponies, turquoises, Persian pussy-cats, saddle-bags, fat-tailed sheep and ~ musk in the Kumharsen Serai, and get many strange things for nothing. In the afternoon I went down there to see whether my friends intended to keep _ their word or were lying about drunk. A priest attired in fragments of ribbons and rags stalked'up to me, gravely twisting a child’s paper whirligig. Behind him was his servant bending under the load of a crate of mud toys. The two were loading up two camels, and the inhabitants of the Serai watched them with shrieks of laughter. “The priest is mad,” said a horse-dealer to me. “ We is going up to Kabul to sell toys to the Amir. He will either be raised to honor or have his head ~ cut off. He came in here this morning and has been behaving madly ever since.” : “The witless are under the protection of God,” stammered a flat-cheeked Usbeg in broken Hindi. “They foretell future events.” : ‘* Would they could have foretold that my cara- - wre THE MAN wHO WOULD BE KING. 87 van would have been cut up by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!” grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been feloniously diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfor- tunes were the laughing-stock of the bazar. “ Ohé, priest, whence come you and whither do you go?” “From Roum have I come,” shouted the priest, waving his whirligig; “from Roum, blown by the breath of a hundred devils across the sea! O thieves, robbers, liars, the blessing of Pir Khan on pigs, dogs, and perjurers! Who will take the Protected of God to the North to sell charms that are never still to the Amir? The camels shall not gall, the sons shall not fall sick, and the wives shall remain faithful while they are away, of the men who give me place in their caravan. Who will assist me to slipper the King of the Roos with a golden slipper with a silver heel? The protection of Pir Khan be upon his labors!” He spread out the skirts of his gaber- dine and pirouetted between the lines of tethered horses. “There starts a caravan from Peshawar to Kabul in twenty days, Huzrut,” said the Eusufzai trader. “My camels go therewith. Do thou also go and bring us good luck.” “J will go even now!” shouted the priest. “I will depart upon my winged camels, and be at Peshawar in a day! Ho! Hazar Mir Khan,” he yelled to his servant, “drive out the camels, but let me first mount my own.” &8 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. He leaped on the back of his beast asit knelt, and, ae turning round to me, cried:—“Come thou also: a Sahib, a little along the road, and I will sell thee a charm—an amulet that shall make thee King of Kafiristan.” _ Then the light broke upon me, and I followed the ~ two camels out of the Serai till we reached open road and the priest halted. “What d’you think o’ that?” said he in English, — “ Oarnehan can’t talk their patter, so Pve made him — my servant. He makesa handsomeservant. *Tisn’t — for nothing that Pve been knocking about the country for fourteen years. Didn’t I do that talk neat? We'll hitch on to a caravan at Peshawar till — we get to Jagdallak, and then we’ll see if we can get — donkeys for our camels, and strike into Kafiristan. Whirligigs for the Amir, O Lor! Put your hand under the camel-bags and tell me what you feel.” I felt the butt of a Martini, and another and an- E other. “ Twenty of em,” said Dravot placidly. “ « Doron ; of ’em, and ammunition to correspond, under the ; Phirligig: and the mud dolls.” “‘ Heaven help you if you are caught eh those things ! 1? T said. “ A Martini is worth her weight in silver among the Pathans.” “Fifteen hundred rupees of capital—every rupee we could beg, borrow, or steal—are invested on these — ae cies ee two camels,” said Dravot. “ We won’t get caught. ’ We’re going through the Khaiber with a regular — caravan, Who'd touch a poor mad priest?” — THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 89 “ Have you got everything you want?” I asked, overcome with astonishment. “ Not yet, but we shall soon. Give usamemento of your kindness, Brother. You did me a service yesterday, and that time in Marwar. Half my Kingdom shall you have, as the saying is.” I slipped a small charm compass from my watch-chain and handed it up to the priest. “ Good-by,” said Dravot, giving me hand cau- tiously. “ It’s the last time we'll shake hands with an Englishman these many days. Shake hands with him Carnehan,” he cried, as the second camel passed me. Carnehan leaned down and shook hands. Then the camels passed away along the dusty road, and I was left alone to wonder. My eye could detect no failure in the disguises. The scene in the Serai at- tested that they were complete to the native mind. There was just the chance, therefore, that Carnehan and Dravot would be able to wander through Afghanistan without detection. But, beyond, they would find death, certain and awful death. Ten days later a native friend of mine, giving me the news of the day from Peshawar, wound up his letter with :—“ There has been much laughter here on account of a certain mad priest who is going in his estimation to sell petty gauds and insignificant trinkets which he ascribes as great charms to H. H. the Amir of Bokhara. He passed through Peshawar and associated himself to the Second Summer cara- van that goes to Kabul. -The merchants are pleased 90° THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. ee mad fellows bring good-fortune.” The two, then, were en the Border. I wou The wheel of the world swings through. the same phases again andagain. Summer passed and winter thereafter, and came and passed again. The dai paper continued and I with it, and upon the thi summer there fell a hot night, a night-issue, and strained waiting for something to be telegraph from the other side of the world, exactly as h happened before. A few great men had died in t. past two years, the machines worked with mo clatter, and some of the trees in the Office gard were a few feet taller. But that was all the difference. I passed over to the press-room, and went chres just such a scene as I have already described. T. nervous tension was stronger than it had been two years before, and I felt the heat more acutely. At three o’clock I cried, ‘‘ Print off,” and turned to go, when there crept to my chair what was left of man. He was bent into a circle, his head was sunk between his shoulders, and he moved his feet one over the other like a bear. I could hardly s whether he walked or crawled—this rag-wrapped, - whining cripple who addressed me by name, crying that he was come back. “Can you give me THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 91 drink?” he whimpered. “For the Lord’s sake, give me a drink!” I went back to the office, the man following with groans of pain, and I turned up the lamp. _ “Don’t you know me?” he gasped, dropping into a chair, and he turned his drawn face, surmounted by a shock of gray hair, to the light. I looked at him intently. Once before had I seen eyebrows that met over the nose in an inch-broad black band, but for the life of me I could not tell where. “T don’t know you,” I said, handing him the whisky. ‘What can I do for you?’’ - He took a gulp of the spirit raw, and shivered in spite of the suffocating heat. “T’ve come back,” he repeated ; “and I was the King of Kafiristan—me and Drayot — crowned Kings we was! In this office we settled it—you setting there and giving us the books. Iam Peachey —Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan, and you’ve been setting here ever since—O Lord! ” I was more than a little astonished, and expressed my feelings accordingly. : “It’s true,” said Carnehan, with a dry cackle, nursing his feet, which were wrapped in rags. “True as gospel. Kings we were, with crowns upon our heads—me and Dravot—poor Dan—oh, poor, poor Dan, that would never take advice, not though I begged of him!” “Take the whisky,’ I said, “and take your own time. Tell me all you can recollect of everything th 2 ee 92 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. from beginning to end. You got across the border — on your camels, Dravot dressed as a mad priest and you his servant. Do you remember that?” | 4 “T ain't mad—yet, but I shall be that way soon. : Of course I remember. Keep looking at me, or may be my words will go all to pieces. Keep look- ing at me in my eyes and don’t say anything.” 4 T leaned forward and looked into his face as steadily as I could. He dropped one hand ‘upon : the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was” : twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, red, diamond-shaped scar. . ‘No, don’t look there. Look at me,” said Carmehan. 4 “That comes afterwards, but for the Lord’s sake don’t distrack me. We left with that caravan, me and Dravot playing all sorts of antics to amuse the people we were with. Dravot used to make us laugh 1 in the evenings when all the people was cook- . ing their dinners—cooking their dinners, and . - what did they do then? They lit little fires with sparks that went into Dravot’s beard, and we all laughed—fit to die. Little red fires Wee was going into Dravot’s big red beard—so funny.” His eyes left mine and he smiled foolishly. . “You went as far as Jagdallak with that cara: van,” I said at a venture, “after you had lit those fires. To J nets where you turned off to try tay get into Kafiristan.” + “No, we didn’t neither. What are you talking about? We turned off before Jagdallak, because THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 93 we heard the roads was good. But they wasn’t good enough for our twocamels—mine and Dravot’s. When we left the caravan, Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would be hea- then, because the Kafirs didn’t allow Mohammedans totalktothem. So we dressed betwixt and between, and such a sight as Daniel Dravot I never saw yet nor expect to see again. He burned half his beard, and slung a sheepskin over his shoulder, and shaved his head into patterns. He shaved mine, too, and made me wear outrageous things to look like a heathen. That wasina most mountaineous country, and our camels couldn’t go along any more because of the mountains. They were tall and black, and coming home I saw them fight like wild goats— there are lots of goats in Kafiristan. And these mountains, they never keep still, no more than the goats. Always fighting they are, and don’t let you sleep at night.” “Take some more whisky,” I said very slowly. “What did you and Daniel Dravot do when the camels could go no further because of the rough roads that led into Kafiristan ? ” “ What did which do? There was a party called Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan that was with Dravot. Shall I tell you about him? He died out there in the cold. Slap from the bridge fell old Peachey, turning and twisting in the air like a penny whirli- gig that you can sell to the Amir.—No; they was two for three ha’pence, those whirligigs, or I am much mistaken and woful sore. And then these 94 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. camels were no use, and Peachey said to Dravot— ‘For the Lord’s sake, let’s get out of this before our heads are chopped off,’ and with that they killed — the camels all among the mountains, not having — : anything in particular to eat, but first they took off — the boxes with the guns ad the ammunition, , ol two men came along driving four mules. Dravot up and dances in front of them, sng y “Sell me ( four mules.’ Says the first man,—‘ If you are rich — enough to buy you are rich erect to rob;’ but : before ever he could put his hand to his rote Dra- vot breaks his neck over his knee, and the other party runs away. So Carnehan loaded the mules — with the rifles that was taken off the camels, and — together we starts forward into those bitter cold — mountaineous parts, and never a road broader than 4 the back of your hand.” y ‘He paused for a moment, while I asked him if he could remember the nature of the country ee q which he had journeyed. ; “Tam telling you as straight as I can, but my head isn’t as seed as it might be. They en nails through it tomake me hear better how Dravo' died. The country was mountaineous and the mules” were most contrary, and the inhabitants was dis. persed and solitary. They went up and up, and down and down, and that other party, Carnchan, was imploring of Dravot not to sing and whistle so loud, for fear of bringing down the tremenjus ava- janches. But Dravot says that if a King couldn’ t sing it wasn’t worth being King, and whacked the — THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 95 mules over the rump, and never took no heed for ten cold days. We came to a big level valley all - among the mountains, and the mules were near dead, so we killed them, not having anything in special for them or us to eat. We sat upon the boxes, and played odd and even with the cartridges that was jolted out. “ Then ten men with bows and arrows ran down that valley, chasing twenty men with bows and arrows, and the row wastremenjus. They was fair men—fairer than you or me—with yellow hair and remarkable well built. Says Dravot, unpacking the guns‘ This is the beginning of the business. We'll fight for the ten men,’ and with that he fires two rifles at the twenty men, and drops one of them at two hundred yards from the rock where we was sitting. The other men began to run, but Carnehan and Dravot sits on the boxes picking them off at all ranges, up and down the valley. Then we goes up to the ten men that had run across the snow too, and they fires a footy little arrow at us. Dravot he shoots above their heads and they all falls down flat. Then he walks over them and kicks them, and then he lifts them up and shakes hands all round to make them friendly like. He calls them and gives them the boxes to carry, and waves his hand for all the world as though he was King already. They takes the boxes and him across the valley and up the hill into a pine wood on the top, where there was half a dozen big stone idols. Dravot he goes to the biggest—a fellow they call Imbra—and lays 96 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. — a rifle and a cartridge at his feet, rubbing his nose - respectful with his own nose, patting him on the — head, and saluting in front of it. He, turns round — to the men and nods his head, and says,—‘ That’s all right. I’m in the know too, and-all these old jim-jams are my friends.’ Then heopens his mouth _ and points down it, and when the first man brings him food, he says—‘No;’ and when the second — man brings him food, he says—‘No;’ but when — one of the old priests and the yo of tie village brings him food, he says—‘ Yes ;’ very haughty, and _ eats it slow. That was how iat came to our first S village, without any trouble, just as though we had tumbled from the skies. But we tumbled from one — of those damned rope-bridges, you see, and you — couldn’t expect a man to laugh much wits that.” “Take some more whisky and go on,” I said. “That was the first village you came into. Hee : did you get to be king !” “T wasn’t King,” said Carnehan. “ Diasel he was the King, and a handsome man he looked with the gold crown on his head and all. Him and the other party stayed in that village, and every morn ing Dravot sat by the side of old Imbra, and the people came and worshiped. That was Drayot’s — order. Then a lot of men came into the valley, and Carnehan and Dravot picks them off with the rifles — before they knew where they was, and runs down _ into the valley and up again the other side, and finds — another village, same as ‘the first one, and the people a all falls down flat on fee faces, and Dravot says,— * ees 6 ew. 9 — Pe a -# ae yd eee ta + Peet & x THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 97 ‘ Now what is the trouble between you two villages ?’ and the people points to a woman, as fair as you or me, that was carried off, and Dravot takes her back to the first village and counts up the dead—eight there was. For each dead man Dravot pours alittle - milk on the ground and waves his arms like a whirli- gig and ‘ That’s all right,’ says he. Then he and Carnehan takes the big boss of each village by the arm and walks them down into the valley, and shows them how to scratch a line with a spear right down the valley, and gives each a sod of turf from both sides o the line. Then all the people comes down and shouts like the devil and all, and Dravot says,— ‘Go and dig the land, and be fruitful and multiply,’ which they did, though they didn’t understand. Then we asks the names of things in their lingo— bread and water and fire and idols and such, and Dravot leads the priest of each village up to the idol, and says he must sit there and judge the people, and if anything goes wrong he is to be shot. “Next week they was all turning up the land in the valley as quiet as bees and much prettier, and the priests heard all the complaints and told Dravot in dumb show what it was about. ‘ That’s just the beginning,’ says Dravot. ‘They think we’re Gods.’ He and Carnehan picks out twenty good men and shows them how to click off a rifle, and form fours, and advance in line, and they was very pleased to do so, and clever to see the hang of it. Then he takes out his pipe and his baccy-pouch and leaves one at one village, and one at the other and off we 7 98 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. two goes to see what was to be done in the next valley. That was all rock, and there was a little village there, and Carnehan le -—‘Send’em to the old valley to plant,’ and takes ’em there and gives ’em some land that wasn’t took before. They were a poor lot, and we blooded ’em with a kid before letting ’em into the new Kingdom. That wastoi im-— press the people, and then Gee settled down quiet, © and Carnehan went back to Drayot who had got into another valley, all snow and ice and most moun. taineous. There was no people there and the Army got afraid, so Dravot shoots one of them, and goe on till he finds some people in a vile and the Army explains that unless the people wants to be — killed they had better not shoot their little match locks; for they had matchlocks. We makes friends a with the priest and I stays there.alone with two o: the Army, teaching the men how to drill, and a thundering big Chief comes across the snow with kettledrums and horns twanging, because he heard there was a new God kicking about. Carneh. sights for the brown of the men half a mile acro the snow and wings one of them. Then he sends message to the Chief that, unless he wished to | killed, he must come and shake hands with me and leave his arms behind. The Chief comes alone first, and Carnehan shakes hands with him and whirls his arms about, same as Dravot used, and very mu surprised that Chief was, and Gree my eyebrow Then Carnehan goes alone to the Chief, and asks him in dumb show if he had an enemy he hate re eas PEG & S fet en eb. ae ee THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 99 ‘T have,’ says the Chief. So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army - to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can maneuver about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chief’s men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy. So we took that village too, and I gives the Chiefa rag from my coat and says, ‘Occupy till 1 come;’ which was scriptural. By way of a reminder, when me and the Army was eighteen hundred yards away, I drops a bullet near him standing on the snow, and all the - people falls flat on their faces. Then I sendsa letter to Dravot, wherever he be by land or by sea.” At the risk of throwing the creature out of train I interrupted,—“ How could you writea letter up yonder ?”’ “The letter ?—Oh!—The letter! Keep looking at me between the eyes, please. It was astring-talk letter, that we’d learned the way of it from a blind beopar i in the Punjab.” I remember that there had once come to the office a blind man with a knotted twig and a piece of string which he wound round the twig according to some cipher of his own. He could, after the lapse of days or hours, repeat the sentence which he had reeled up. He had reduced the alphabet to eleven primitive sounds ; and tried to teach me his method, but failed. “JY sent that letter to Dravot,” said Carnehan ; 100 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. “and told him to come back because this Kingdom — was growing too big for me to handle, and then I struck for the first valley, to see how the priests were - working. They called the village we took slong @ with the Chief, Bashkai, and the first village we took, — Er-Heb. The priests at Er-Heb was doing all right, : but they had a lot of pending cases about land to — ; show me, and some men from another village had been firing arrows at night. I went out and looked for that village and fired four rounds atitfrom a thousand yards. That used all the cartridgesI cared to spend, and I waited for Dravot, who had been — away two or three months, and I kept my people a quiet. os “One morning I heard the devil’s own noise of drums and horns, and Dan Dravot marches down the hill with his Army and atailofhundredsof men, and,—which was the most amazing—a great gold ae crown on his head. ‘My Gord, Carnehan, says Daniel, ‘ this is a tremenjus fies and we’ve got the whole country as far as it’s worth having. Iam the son of Alexander by Queen Semiramis, and-you’re — my younger brotherandaGodtoo! It’s ihe biggest thing we’veever seen. D’ve been marching and fight- ing for six weeks with the Army, and every footy — little village for fifty miles has come in rejoiceful; and more than that, Pve got the key of the whole ~ show, as you'll see, and Pve got a crown for you! © I told ’em to maketwo of ’em ata placecalled Shu, where the gold lies in the rock like suet in mutton. aa Gold I’ve seen and turquoise I’ve kicked out of the a Ay Comet ae Wt 2h 2 5 Sy may: ty ved 4 THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. 101 cliffs, and there’s garnets in the sands of the river, and here’s a chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and, here, take your crown.’ “One of the men opens a black hair bag and I slips the crown on. It was too small and too heavy, but I woreit for the glory. Hammered gold it was —five pound weight, like a hoop of a barrel. ““¢ Peachey,’ says Dravot, ‘ we don’t want to fight nomore. The Craft’s the trick so help me!’ and he brings forward that same Chief that I left at Bashkai— Billy Fish we called him afterwards, be- cause he was so like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in the old days. ‘Shake hands with him,’ says Dravot, and I shook hands and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. Isaid nothing, but tried him with the Fellow Craft Grip. He answers, all right, and I tried the Master’s Grip, but that was aslip. ‘A Fellow Craft he is!’ I says to Dan. ‘ Does he know the word?’ ‘He does,’ says Dan, ‘and all the priests know. It’s a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a Fellow Craft Lodge in a way that’s very like ours, and they’ve cut the marks on the rocks, but they don’t know the Third Degree, and they've come to find out. It’s Gord’s Truth. Tve known these long years that the Afghans knew up to the Fellow Craft Degree, but this is a miracle. A God and a Grand-Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third Degree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of the villages.’ “ fortably as through a broken pane. I lived in dak- bungalows where the last entry in the visitors’ book = was fifteen months old, and where they slashed off the curry-kid’s head with a sword. It was my good-luck to meet all sorts of men, from sober traveling missionaries and deserters flying from British Regiments, to drunken loafers who threw > whisky bottles at all who passed; and my still greater good-fortune just toescape amaternity case. _ Seeing that a fair proportion of the tragedy of our lives out here acted itself in dak-bungalows, I wondered that [had met no ghosts. A ghost that would voluntarily hang about a dak-bungalow would be mad of course; but so many men have died mad in dak-bungalows that there must be a fair percent- 4 age of lunatic ghosts. In due time I found my ghost, or ghosts rather, for there were two of them. Uptill that hourI had sympathized with Mr. Besant’s method of hand- — a ling them, as shown in “ Zhe Strange Case of Mr. Lucraft and other Stories.” I am now in the Pe Opposition. ce We will call the bungalow Katmal dak- buna ag But that was the smallest part of the horror. A 4 man witha sensitive hide has no right to sleepin dak-bungalows. He should marry. Katmal dak- bungalow was old and rotten and unrepaired. The floor was of worn brick, the walls were filthy, and 2 the windows were nearly black with grime. It stood on a bypath largely used by native Sub-Deputy — 4 MY OWN TRUE GHOST sToRY. 127 Assistants of all kinds, from Finance _ to Forests; but real Sahibs were rare. The khansamah, who was nearly bent double with old age, said so. When I arrived, there was a fitful, undecided rain on the face of the land, accompanied by a restless wind, and every gust made a noise like the rattling of dry bones in the stiff toddy-palms outside. The khansamah completely lost his head on my arrival. He had served a Sahib once. Did I know that Sahib? He gave methe name of a well-known man who'has been buried for more than a quarter of a century, and showed me an ancient daguerreotype of that man in his prehistoric youth. I had seen a steel engraving of him at the head of a double volume of Memoirs a month before, and I felt ancient beyond telling. The day shut in and the khansamah went to get me food. Hedid not go through the pretense of calling it “khana”—man’s victuals. He said “ratub,’ and that means, among other things, “ orub”—dog’s rations. There was no insult in in his choice of the term. He had-forgotten the other word, I suppose. While he was cutting up the dead bodies of animals, I settled myself down, after exploring the dak-bungalow. There were three rooms, beside my own, which was a corner kennel, each giving into the other through dingy white doors fastened with long iron bars. The bungalow was a very solid one, but the partition-walls of the rooms were almost jerry-built in their flimsiness. Every step or 128 MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. bang of a fant echoed from my room _ down ‘the ‘other three, and every footfall came back tremu lously from the far walls. For this reason I shut the. door. There were no lamps—only candles in long | glass shades. An oil wick was set in us Las : room. For bleak, unadulterated misery that ne bunga- low was the worst of the many that I had ever set foot in. There was no fire-place, and the windows would not open; so a brazier of charcoal would have been useless. The rain and the wind splashed and gurgled and moaned round the house, and the toddy-palms rattled and roared. Half a dozen jackals went through the compound singing, and hyena stood afar off and mocked them. A hyena would convince a Sadducee of the Resurrection of the Dead—the worst sort of Dead. Then came the ratub—a curious meal, half native and half English in composition—with the old khansamah babbling behind my chair about dead and gone English people, and the wind-blown candles play- ing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the mos -quito-curtains. It was just the sort of dinner an evening to make a man think of every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that he intend d to commit if he dived: Sleep, for several hundred reasons, was not eas} The lamp in the bath-room threw the most absur shadows into the room, and the wind was beginni to talk nonsense. , : Just when the reasons were drowsy with, blood MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 129 sucking I heard the regular—“ Let-us-take-and- heave-him-over ” grunt of doolie-bearers in the com- pound. First one doolie came in, then a second, and then a third. J heard the doolies dumped on the ground, and the shutter in front of my door shook. “That’s some one trying to come in,” I said. But no one spoke, and I persuaded myself that it was the gusty wind. The shutter of the room next to mine was attacked, flung back, and - the inner door opened. “ That’s some Sub-Deputy Assistant,” I said, “and he has brought his friends with him. Now they’ll talk and spit and smoke for an hour.” But there were no voices and no footsteps. No one was putting his luggage into the next room. The door shut, and I thanked Providence that I was to be left in peace. But I was curious to know where the doolies had gone. I got out of bed and looked into the darkness. There was never a sign ofa doolie. Just as I was getting into bed again, I heard, in the next room, the sound that no man in his senses can possibly mistake—the whir of a billiard ball down the length of the slates when the striker is stringing for break. No other sound is like it. A minute afterwards there was another whir, and I got into bed. I was not frightened—indeed I was not. JI was very curious to know what had become of the doolies. I jumped into bed for that reason. Next minute I heard the double click of a can- non and my hair sat up. It is a mistake to say that mong 130 MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. hair stands up. The skin of the head tightens and you can feel a faint, prickly bristling all over the — ‘sealp. That is the hair sitting up. There was a whir and a click, and both sounds : could only have been made by one thing—a billiard — ball. I argued the matter out at great length with myself; and the more I argued the less probable it seemed that one bed, one table, and two chairs—all the furniture of the room next to mine—could so exactly duplicate the sounds of a game of billiards. After another cannon, a three-cushion one to judge by the whir, I argued no more. JI had found my 3 ghost and would have given worlds to have escaped from that dak-bungalow. I listened, and with each — listen the game grew clearer. There was whir on whir and click on click. Sometimes there was a double click and a whir and another click. Beyond 4 any sort of doubt, people were playing billiards in the next room. And the next room was not big enough to hold a billiard table! Between the pauses of the wind I heard the game go forward—stroke after stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices ; but that attempt was a failure. Do you know what fear is? Not ordinary fear of insult, injury or death, but abject, quivering dread _of something that you cannot see—fear that dries the inside of the mouth and half of the throat—fear — that makes you sweat on the palms of the hands, and gulp in order to keep the uvula at work? This — is a fine Fear—a great cowardice, and must be felt ; a fo? Se Seen ial f b 7" MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 131 to be appreciated. The very improbability of billiards in a dak-bungalow proved the reality of the thing. No man—drunk or sober—could imagine a game at billiards, or invent the spitting crack of a “screw-cannon.” A severe course of dak-bungalows has this dis- advantage—it breeds infinite credulity. Ifa man said to a confirmed dak-bungalow-haunter :—“ There is a corpse in the next room, and there’s a mad girl in the next but one, and the woman and man on that camel have just eloped from a place sixty miles away,” the hearer would not disbelieve because he would know that nothing is too wild, grotesque, or horrible to happen in a dak-bungalow. This credulity, unfortunately, extends to ghosts. A rational person fresh from his own house would have turned on his side and slept. I did not. So surely as I was given up as a bad carcass by the scores of things in the bed because the bulk of my blood was in my heart, so surely did I hear every stroke of a long game at billiards played in the echoing room behind the iron-barred door. My dominant fear was that the players might want a marker. It was an absurd fear; because creatures who could play in the dark would be above such superfiuities. I only know that that was my terror ; and it was real. After a long long while, the game stopped, and the door banged. I slept because I was dead tired. Otherwise I should have preferred to have kept awake. Not for everything in Asia would I have ae nearly to Kabul.” 132 = My own TRUE GHOST sory. dropped the door- ban and peered into the ‘dark of the next room. : When the morning came, I considered that I had done well and wisely, and oad for the means OL departure. oe “By the way, khansamah,” I said, “ ne were. those three doolies doing in my compound _ in the night ?” ‘There were no doolies,” ae the hapa I went into the next room and the daylight. streamed through the open door. I was immensely — brave. I would, at that hour, have played Black — Pool with the owner of the big Black Pool down below. “Has this place always been a dak-bungalow 1” S I asked. On “No,” said the annie ‘Tension: twenty years ago, I have forgotten how long, i it was. a billiard-room.” iy . , “¢ A how much ?” , | “A billiard-room for the Sahibs who puilt, tis Railway. I was khansamah then in the big house where all the Railway-Sahibs lived, and I used to. come across with brandy-shrab. These three rooms were all one, and they held a big table on which the Sahibs played every evening. But the Sahibs are all dead now, and the ee runs, oe ey) : “Do you remember anything about the Side? > “Tt is long ago, but I remember that one Sahib, a fat man and always angry, was playing here one MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 133 night, and he said to me:—‘ Mangal Khan, brandy- pani do, and I filled the glass, na he bent over the table to strike, and his head fell lower and lower till it hit the beable and his spectacles came off, and when we—the Sahibs and I myself—ran to lift him he was dead. I helped to carry him out. Aha, he was a strong Sahib! But he is dead and I, old Mangal Khan, am still living, by your favor.” That was more than enough! [ had my ghost— a first-hand, authenticated article. I would write to the Society for Psychical Research—I would paralyze the Empire with the news! But I would, first of all, put eighty miles of assessed crop-land between myself and that dak-bungalow before night- fall. The Society might send their regular agent to investigate later on. I went into my room and prepared to pack after noting down the facts of the case. As I smoked I heard the game begin again,—with a miss in balk this time, for the whir was a short one. _ The door was open and I could see into the room. Click—cleck ! That was a cannon. I entered the room without fear, for there was sunlight within and a fresh breeze without. The unseen game was going on at a tremendous rate. And well it might, when a restless little rat was running to and fro inside the dingy ceiling-cloth, and a piece of loose window-sash was making fifty breaks off the Wwin- dow-bolt as it shook in the breeze ! Impossible to mistake the sound of billiard balls! Impossible to mistake the whir of a hall over the 134 MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. slate! But I was to be excused. Even when Ishut — my enlightened eyes the sound was mae a like that of a fast game. Entered angrily the faithful partner of my sor- oy rows, Kadir Baksh. | x This bungalow is very bad and low-astet No wonder the Presence was disturbed and is speckled. Three sets of doolie-bearers came to the bungalow late last night when I was sleeping outside, and sai ee = that it was their custon to rest in the rooms set apart for the English people! What honor has the khansamah ? They tried to enter, but I told them — a to go. No wonder, if these Oorias have been here, that the Presence is sorely spotted. It is shame, and the work of a dirty man!” a Kadir Baksh did not say that he had taken from a each gang two annas for rent in advance, and then, _ beyond my earshot, had beaten them with the big green umbrella whose use I could never before di- vine. But Kadir Baksh has no notions of morality. There was an interview with the khansamah, but as he promptly lost his head, wrath gave place to : pity, and pity led to a long conversation, in the course of which he put the fat Engineer- Sahib’s tragic. death in three separate stations—two of them fifty — ac _milesaway. The third shift was to Calcutta, and there the Sahib died while driving a dog-cart. 7 If Thad encouraged him the khansamah would _ have wandered all through Bengal with his corpse. . I did not go away as soon as I intended. I stayed _ for the night, while the wind and the rat and the MY OWN TRUE GHOST STORY. 135 sash and the window-bolt played a ding-dong “ hun- dred and fifty up.” Then the wind ran out and the billiards stopped, and I felt that I had ruined my one genuine, hall-marked ghost story. Had I only stopped at the proper time, I could have made anything out of it. That was the bitterest thought of all! ~ HIS MAJESTY THE KING. — «‘ Where the word of a King is, there is Bs and who. may say unto Be CEE Rs doest thou o oe oY wre! And Chimo to sleep at ve foot of e I will be hanes in ve ee vate all, Miss Biddums. And now give me one kiss and Pi go sleep.—So! Kitequiet. Ow! Vepink pikky-bo has slidded under ve pillow and ve bwead is cwum bling! Miss Biddums! Miss Beddums! Tm so un- comfy! Come and tuck me up, Miss Biddums.”? His Majesty the King was going to bed ; and poo patient Miss Biddums, who had advertised herself humbly as a “ young person, European, accustomed — to the care of little children,” was forced to we upon his royal caprices. The going to bed was ways a lengthy process, because His Majesty had convenient knack of forgetting which of his ma friends, from the mehter’s son to the Commissione daughter, he had prayed for, and, lest the De’ should take offense, was used to toil through | : little prayers, in all reverence, five times in one eve ing. His Majesty the King believed in the effica of prayer as devoutly as he believed 1 in Chimo t 136 | HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 13% patient spaniel, or Miss Biddums, who could reach him down his gun—“ with cursuffun caps——reed ones ” —from the upper shelves of the big nursery cup- board. At the door of the nursery his authority stopped. Beyond lay the empire of his father and mother— two very terrible people who had no time to waste upon His Majesty the King. His voice was lowered when he passed the frontier of his own dominions, his actions were fettered, and his soul was filled with awe because of the grim man who lived among a wilderness of pigeon-holes and the most fascinating pieces of red tape, and the wonderful woman who was always getting into or stepping out of the big carriage. } To the one belonged the mysteries of the “ duftar- room ;” to the other the great, reflected wilderness of the “ Memsahib’s room ” where the shiny, scented dresses hung on pegs, miles and miles up in the air, and the just-seen plateau of the toilet-table revealed an acreage of speckly combs, broidered “ hanafitch- bags,” and “ white-headed ” brushes. There was no room for His Majesty the King either in official reserve or mundane gorgeousness. _ He had discovered that, ages and ages ago—-before even Chimo came to the house, or Miss Biddums - had ceased grizzling over a packet of greasy letters which appeared to be her chief treasure on earth. His Majesty the King, therefore, wisely confined himself to his own territories, where only Miss Bid- dums, and she feebly, disputed his sway. 138 HIS MAJESTY THE KING. From Miss Biddums he had picked up hissimple theology and welded it to the legends of gods and = devils that he had learned in the servants’ quarters. To Miss Biddums he confided with equal trust his — tattered garments and his more serious griefs. She — would make everything whole. She knew exactly how the Earth had been born, and had reassured the trembling soul of His Majesty the King that terrible time in July when it rained continuously for seven — days and seven nights, and—there was no Ark ~ ready and all the ravens had flown away! She was — the most powerful person with whom he was brought into contact—always excepting the two remote and silent people beyond the nursery door. : How was his Majesty the King to know that, six — years ago, in the summer of his birth, Mrs. Austell, — turning over her husband’s papers, had come upon the intemperate letter of a foolish woman who had — been carried away by the silent man’s strength and — personal beauty? How could he tell what evil the — overlooked slip of note-paper had wrought in the mind of a desperately jealous wife! How could he, — despite his wisdon, guess that his mother had chosen o to make of it excuse for a bar and a division between — herself and her husband, that strengthened and grew harder to break with each year; that she hay- ing unearthed this skeleton in the cupboard had trained it into a household God which should be about their path and about. their bed, and a all : their ways ? : These things were beyond the province of His HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 139 Majesty the King. He only knew that his father was daily absorbed in some mysterious work for a thing called the Szrkar and that his mother was the victim alternately of the Wautch and the Burrk- hana. To these entertainments she was escorted by a Captain-Man for whom His Majesty the King had no regard. “He doesn’t laugh,” he argued with Miss Biddumsg, who would fain have taught him charity. “He only makes faces wiv his mouf, and when he wants to o-muse me I am noéo-mused.” And His Majesty the King shook his head as one who knew the de- ceitfulness of this world. Morning and evening it was his duty to salute his father and mother—the former with a grave shake of the hand, and the latter with an equally grave kiss. Once, indeed, he had put his arms round his mother’s neck, in the fashion he used towards Miss Biddums. The openwork of his sleeve-edge caught in an earring, and the last stage of His Majesty’s little overture was a suppressed scream and summary dismissal to the nursery. “It is wong,” thought His Majesty the King, “to hug Memsahibs wiv fings in veir ears. I will amember.” He never repeated the experiment. Miss Biddums, it must be confessed, spoilt him as much as his nature admitted, in some sort of rec- ompense for what she called “ the hard ways of his Papa and Mamma.” She, like her charge, knew nothing of the trouble between man and wife—the savage contempt for a woman’s stupidity on the one 140 HIS MAJESTY THE KING. ‘side, or the dull, rankling anger on the othe Biddums had jopken after many little chaters her time, and served in many establishments. ing a discreet woman, she observed little and sai less, and, when her ee went over the sea to the Great Unknown which she, with touching confidence in her hearers, called “ Home? packed up her slender belongings and sought for anplayae afresh, lavish- ing all her love on each successive batch of ingrate Only His Majesty the King had repaid her affection with interest; and in his uncomprehending ears she had told the tale of nearly all her hopes, her aspi tions, the hopes that were dead, and the dazzling glories of her ancestral home in Calcutta, close Oo Wallington Square.” Everything above the average was in the eyes f his Majesty the King “ Calcutta good.” When M Biddums had crossed his royal will, he reversed t epithet to vex that estimable indy, and all things evil were, until the tears of repentance ees aw. spite, “ Calcutta bad.” i Now and again Miss Biddums begged for him the rare pleasure a a day in the society of the Com -sioner’s child—the wilful four-year-old Patsie, who to the intense amazement of His Majesty the King, was idolized by her parents. On thinking the ques- tion out at length, by roads unknown to those w. blue sash and yellow hair. ss This precious discovery he kept to himself wT HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 14/1 yellow hair was absolutely beyond his power, his . own tousled wig being potato-brown ; but something might be done towards the blue sash. He tied a large knot in his mosquito-curtains in order to re- member to consult Patsie on their next meeting. She was the only child he had ever spoken to, and almost the only one that he had ever seen. The little memory and the very large and ragged knot held good. “ Patsie, lend me your blue wiban,” said His Majesty the King. “You'll bewy it,” said Patsie doubtfully, mindful of certain fearful atrocities committed on her doll. S no: [ won’t—twoofanhonor. It’s for me to wear.’ Pooh!” said Patsie. “ Boys don’t wear sa-ashes. Zep’s only for dirls.” : “T didn’t know.” The face of his Majesty the King fell. “Who wants ribbons! Are you playing horses, chickabiddies ?”’ said the Commissioner’s wife, step- ping into the veranda. “Toby wanted my sash,” explained Patsie. “T don’t now,” said His Majesty the King hastily, feeling that with one of these terrible “ grown-ups ” his poor little secret would be shamelessly wrenched from him, and perhaps—-most burning desecration of all—laughed at. “Tl give you a cracker-cap,” said the Commis- sioner’s wife. “Come along with me, Toby, and we'll choose it.” _ spike, was tender. The cracker-cap was a stiff, ehres pull milion-and-tinsel splendor. His Majesty the k fitted it on his royal brow. The wile had a face that children instinctively t and her action, as she adjusted the opine “ Will it do as well?” stammered His Majaty + the King. es “ As what, litile one?” “ As ve wiban?” ne “Oh, cote Go and look at yourself i in glass.” a The words were spoken in all sincerity and help forward any absurd “ dressing-up” amuseme that the children might take into their minds. But the young savage hasa keen sense of the] u id ie crous. His Majesty the King swung the gre cheval-glass down, and saw his head owas vi the staring horror of a fool’s capa ting which hi father Ee rend to pieces if it ever came into I office. He plucked it off, and burst into tears. — “Toby,” said the Commissioner's wife gravel “you shouldn’t give way - temper. I am ve sorry to see it. It’s wrong.” = His Majesty the King sobbed inconsolably, al the heart of Patsie’s mother was touched. SI drew the child on to her knee. dalres was I “geass alone. | “What is it, Toby? Won't ya tell me? a you well?” The torrent of sobs and speech met, and | HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 143 for a time, with chokings and gulpings and gasps. Then, in a sudden rush, His Majesty the King was delivered of a few inarticulate sounds, followed by the words :—“* Go a—way you—dirty—little deb- bil! ” “Toby! What do you mean?” “Tt’s what he’d say. I know itis! He said vat when vere was only a little, little egzy mess, on my t-t-unic; and he’d say it again, and laugh, if I went in wif vat on my head.” “Who would say that?” “ M-m-my Papa! And I fought if I had ve blue wiban, he’d let me play in ve waste-paper basket under ve table.” x * What blue ribbon, childie ?” “Ve same vat Patsie had—ve big blue wiban w-w-wound my t-t-tummy !” “What is it, Toby? There’s something on your mind. ‘Tell me all aboutit and perhaps I can help.” “Tsn’t anyfing,’ sniffed His Majesty, mindful of his manhood, and raising his head from the motherly bosom upon which it was resting. “I only fought vat you—you petted Patsie ’cause she had ve blue wiban, and—and if I’d had ve blue wiban too, m-my Papa w-would pet me.” The secret was out, and His Majesty the King sobbed bitterly in spite of the arms round him, and the murmur of comfort on his heated little forehead. Enter Patsie tumultuously, embarrassed by several lengths of the Commissioner’s pet mahseer-rod. “Tum along, Toby! Zere’s a chu-chu lizard in ze yy I iT it sel Kt cen i) | ing down frac the Commisioner’s wife’s knee a a hasty kiss. Bane : heads.” _for the benefit of His Majesty the King. — 144" HIS MAJESTY THE KING. ‘e ee chick, and I’ve told Chimo to watch him fill a um. If we poke him wiz zis his tail will go wiggle-wiggl oe and fall off. tam along! I can’t weach.” : “7’m comin’,” said His Majesty the King, climb. Two minutes later, the chu-chu lizard’s isi was S wiggling on the matting of the veranda, and the — children were gravely poking it with splinters from the chick, to urge its exhausted vitality, into “jz one wiggle more, ’cause it doesn’t hurt chu-chu.” The “Commnissoner’s Wife stood in the doorwe ee and watched :—* Poor little mite! A blue sash . . . and my own precious Patsie! I wonder if the best of us, or we who love them best, evel understand what E08 2 on in their Bei wedding-ring. and she went ees to devise a «c su sees aren’t i in their pase at that a, on Mrs. Austell and ake long and ore ab children ; inquiring specely: for His Majesty. King. — ae “He’s with his governess,’ said Mrs. Aust 2 and the tone intimated that she was not intere rest d. YS he oe Pt ae 25 SS ge ere ow ee. ove see Tf ae eS MA? De iin |. ae a a oa! ae) arin Dad 5 ae Sh : ReaD, HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 145 _ war, continued her questionings. “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Austell. “These things are left to Miss Biddums, and, of course, she does not ill-treat the child.” The Commissioner’s wife left hastily. The last sentence jarred upon her nerves. “ Doesn’t 2d/-treat the child! As if that were all! I wonder what Tom would say if I only ‘ didn’t ill-treat’ Patsie ! ” Thenceforward, His Majesty the King was an honored guest at the Commissioner’s house, and the chosen friend of Patsie, with whom he blundered into as many scrapes as the compound and the ser- vants’ quarters afforded. Patsie’s Mamma was always ready to give counsel, help, and sympathy, ~ and, if need were and callers few, to enter into their games with an abandon that would have shocked the sleek-haired subalterns who squirmed painfully in their chairs when they came to call on her whom they profanely nicknamed “ Mother Bunch.” Yet, in spite of Patsie and Patsie’s Mamma, and the love that these two lavished upon him, His Maj- esty the King fell grievously from grace, and com- mitted no less a sin than that of theft—unknown, it is true, but burdensome. There came a man to the door one day, when His Majesty was playing in the hall and the bearer had gone to dinner, with a packet for his Majesty’s Mamma. And he put it upon the hall-table, said that there was no answer, and departed. _ Presently, the pattern of the dado ceased to inter- est His Majesty, while the packet, a white, neatly 10 146 HIS MAJESTY THE KING. wrapped one of fascinating shape, interested him very _ much indeed. His Mamma was out, so was Miss — Biddums, and there was pink string round the packet. He greatly desired pink string. It would help him in many of his little businesses—the haulage across — the floor of his small cane-chair, the torturing of Chimo, who could never understand harness—and so forth. If he took the string it would be his own, and nobody would be any the wiser. He certainly — 3 could not pluck up sufficient courage to ask Mamma — for it. Wherefore, mounting upon a chair, he care- fully untied the string and, behold, the stiff white aper spread out in four directions, and revealed a beautiful little leather box with gold lines upon it! He tried to replace the string, but that wasa failure. So he opened the box to get full satisfaction for his iniquity, and saw amost beautiful Star thatshoneand : winked, and was altogether lovely and desirable. \ “Vat,” said His Majesty meditatively, “is a_ - *parkle cwown, like what I will wear when I go to heaven. I will wear it on my head—Miss Bid- dums says so. I would like to wear it now. I would like to play wiv it. I will take it away and play wiv it, very careful, until Mamma asks for it. — I fink it was bought for me to play wiv—same as my cart.” His Majesty the King was arguing against his conscience, and he knew it, for he thought 1mme- diately after: “ Never mind. I will keep it to play wiv until Mamma says where is it, and then I will say :—‘I tookt it and Iam sorry.’ I will not hurt — HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 147 it, because it is a ’parkle cwown. But Miss Bid- dums will tell me to put it back. I will not show it to Miss Biddums.” If Mamma had come in at that moment all would have gone well. She did not, and His Majesty the King stuffed paper, case, and jewel into the breast of his blouse and marched to the nursery. “When Mamma asks I will tell,” was the salve that he laid upon his conscience. But Mamma never asked, and for three whole days His Majesty the King gloated over his treasure. It was of no earth- ly use to him, but it was splendid, and, for aught he knew, something dropped from the heavens them- selves. Still Mamma made no- inquiries, and it seemed to him, in his furtive peeps, as though the shiny stones grew dim. What was the use of a *parkle cwown if it made a little boy feel all bad in his inside? He had the pink string as well as the other treasure, but greatly he wished that he had not gone beyond the string. It was his first experi- ence of iniquity, and it pained him after the flush of possession and secret delight in the “’parkle cwown ”’ had died away. Each day that he delayed rendered confession to the people beyond the nursery doors more impos- sible. Now and again he determined to put himself in the path of the beautifully attired lady as she was going out, and explain that he and no one else was the possessor of a “’parkle cwown,” most beau- tiful and quite uninquired for. But she passed hurriedly to her carriage, and the opportunity was 148 . HIS MAJESTY THE KING. | gone before His Majesty the King could coe the deep breath which clinches noble resolve. The dread secret cut him off from Miss Biddums, Patsie, and the Commissioner’s wife, and—doubly hard fate—-when he brooded over it Patsie said, and told her mother, that he was cross. The days were very long to His ace the King, and the nights longer still. Miss Biddums had in- formed him, more than once, what was the ultimate destiny of “ fieves,”’ and Oa he passed the inter- minable mud flanks of the Central Jail, he shook i in his little strapped shoes. But release came after an afternoon spent in play ing boats by the edge of the tank at the bottom of the garden. His Majesty the King went to tea, and, for the first time in his memory, the meal revalted him. His nose was very cold, and his cheeks were burning hot. There was a weigh about his feet, and he pressed his head several times to make sure that it was not swelling as he sat. “T feel vevy funny,” said His Majesty’ the King, ey rubbing his nose. “ Nee: s a buzz-buzz in a head.” | s He went to bed quietly. Miss Bidgaine was out and the bearer undressed him. = The sin of the “’parkle cwown” was ome the acuteness of the discomfort to which he rou after a leaden sleep of some hours. He was thirs and the bearer had forgotten to leave the drinkin water. “Miss Biddums! Miss Biddums! Pm s kirsty !” | a HIS: MAJESTY THE KING. 149 No answer. Miss Biddums had leave to attend the wedding of a Calcutta schoolmate. His Ma- jesty the King had forgotten that. “T want a dwink of water!” he cried, but his voice was dried up in histhroat. “Iwantadwink! Vere is ve glass ?” He sat up in bed and looked round. There was a murmur of voices from the other side of the nur- sery door. It was better to face the terrible un- known than to choke in the dark. He slipped out of bed, but his feet were strangely wilful, and he reeled once or twice. Then he pushed the door open and staggered—a puffed and purple-faced little figure—into the brilliant light of the dining-room full of pretty ladies. “Tm vevy hot! Pm vevy uncomfitivle,” moaned His Majesty the King, clinging to the portiére, “and vere’s no water in ve glass, and ’msokirsty. Give me a dwink of water.” An apparition in black and white—His Majesty the King could hardly see distinctly—lifted him up to the level of the table, and felt his wrists and fore- head. The water came, and he drank deeply, his teeth chattering against the edge of the tumbler. Then every one seemed to go away—every one ex- cept the huge man in black and white, who carried him back to his bed ; the mother and father follow- ing. And the sin of the “’parkle cwown ” rushed back and took possession of the terrified soul. “Tm a fief!” he gasped. “I want to tell Miss Biddums vat ’m a fief. Vere is Miss Biddums ¢” 150 HIS MAJESTY THE KING. Miss Biddums had come and was bending over him. — “Tm a fief,” he whispered. ‘ A fief—like ve men in the pwison. But Tll tell now. Itookt . . . I tookt ve ’parkle cwown when the man that came left it in ve hall. I bwoke ve paper and ve little bwown box, and it looked shiny, and I tookt it to play wif, © and I was afwaid. It’s in ve dooly-box at ve bot- — tom. No one never asked for it, but I was atwaid. . Oh, go an’ get ve dooly-box!” Miss Biddums obediently stooped to the owes shelf of the almirah and unearthed the big paper box in which His Majesty the King kept his dearest os possessions. Under the tin soldiers, anda layer of mud pellets for a pellet-bow, winked and blazed a diamond star, wrapped roughly in a half-sheet of — ; note-paper whereon were a few words. | Somebody was crying at the head of the bed, and a man’s hand touched the forehead of His Majesty the King, who grasped the packet and spread it on — ee the bed. “Vat is ve ’parkle cwown,” he said and wept bitterly ; for now that he had made restitution he would fain have kept the shining splendor with him. — i ‘It concerns vou too,” said a voice at the head of the bed. “ Read the note. This is not the time to keep back anything.” =. The note was curt, very much to the point, and sioned by a single initial. “Jf you wear this to- morrow night. LI shall know what to expect.” The date was three weeks old. A whisper followed, and the deeper voice re- HIS MAJESTY THE KING. 151 turned :—“ And you drifted as far apart as that! I think it makes us quits now, doesn’t it? Oh, can’t we drop this folly once and for all? Is it worth it, darling ¢” “Kiss me too,’ said His Majesty the King, dreamily. “ You isn’t vevy angwy, is you?” The fever burned itself out, and His Majesty the King slept. When he waked, it was in a new world—peopled by his father and mother as well as Miss Biddums: and there was much love in that world and no mor- sel of fear, and more petting than was good for several little boys. His Majesty the King was too young to moralize on the uncertainty of things human, or he would have been impressed with the _ singular advantages of crime—ay, black sin. Be- hold, he had stolen the “’parkle cwown,” and his reward was Love, and the right to play in the waste- paper basket under the table “ for always.” He trotted over to spend an afternoon with Patsie, and the Commissioner’s wife would have kissed him. “No, not vere,” said His Majesty the King, with superb insolence, fencing one corner of his mouth with his hand. “ Vat’s my Mamma’s place—-vere she kisses me.” “Oh!” said the Commissioner’s wife briefly. Then to herself :—“ Well, I suppose I ought to be glad for his sake. Children are selfish little grubs and—Tve got my Patsie.” and that was the end of the christened titles. ri mother’s ayah called him Willie-Baba, but as never paid the faintest attention to anything t. the ayah said, her wisdom did not help matters. His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and as soon as Wee Willie Winkie was old enough to un derstand what Military Discipline meant, Colo Williams put him under it. There was no other way of managing thechild. Whenhe was good fo H Ghanees to little eros of going wrong. Children resent familiarity from strangers, Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subal of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was fae tea the Gdionel’s and Wee ae Winkie entered str 152 WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 153 ‘in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for - not chasing the hens round the compound. He re- garded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes and then delivered himself of his opinion. “T like you,” said he slowly, getting off his chair and coming over to Brandis. “I like you. I shall call you Coppy, because of your hair. Do you mind being called Coppy? it is because of ve hair, you know.” Here was one of the most embarrassing of Wee Willie Winkie’s peculiarities. He would look ata stranger for some time, and then, without warning or explanation, would give him a name. And the name stuck. No regimental penalties could break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. He lost his good- conduct badge for christening the Commissioner’s wife “ Pobs”; but nothing that the Colonel could do made the Station forego the nickname, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. « Pobs”’ till the end of her stay. So Brandis was christened “Coppy,” and rose, therefore, in the estimation of the regi- ment. If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in any one, the fortunate man was envied alike by the mess and the rank and file. And in their envy lay no suspi- cion of self-interest. “The Colonel’s son” was idolized on his own merits entirely. Yet Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His face was per- manently freckled, as his legs were permanently scratched, and in spite of his mother” s almost tear- fal temonstrances hé had insisted tipon having his 154 WEE WILLIE WINKIE. long yellow locks cut short in the military fashion. ‘Tl want my hair like Sergeant Tummiul’s,” said Wee Willie Winkie, and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was accomplished. Three weeks after the bestowal of his youn a affections on Lieutenant Brandis—henceforward to aM be called “Coppy” for. the sake of brevity—Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold strange things and far beyond his comprehension. Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had let him wear for five rapturous minutes his own big sword—just as tall as Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier puppy; and a Coppy had permitted him to witness the miraculous operation of shaving. Nay, more—Coppy had said _ that even he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the Aen of a box of ee knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled “ sputter, bend: ec Wee Willie Winkie calledit. Decidedly, there was no one except his father, who could give or take oe away good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his breast. Why, then, — should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly weakness of _ kissing—vehemently kissing—a “big girl,” Miss Allardyce to wit? In the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he was, had promptly wheeled round and cantered back to his groom, lest the groom should also see. Under ordinary circumstances he would have ae WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 155 spoken to his father, but he felt instinctively that this was a matter on which Coppy ought first to be consulted. | “Coppy,” shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside that subaltern’s bungalow early one morning —‘‘] want to see you, Coppy! ” “Come in, young ’un,” returned Coppy, who was at early breakfast in the midst of his dogs. ‘“ What mischief have you been getting into now?” Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for three days, and so stood ona pinnacle of virtue. “Tve been doing nothing bad,” said he, curling himself into a long chair with a studious affectation of: the Colonel’s languor after a hot parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, asked :—“I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?” “By Jove! You're beginning early. Who do you want to kiss?” “No one. My muvver’s always kissing me if I don’t stop her. If it isn’t pwoper, how was you kiss- ing Major Allardyce’s big girl last morning, by ve canal ? ” Coppy’s brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with great craft managed to keep their engage- ment secret for afortnight. There were urgent and imperative reasons why Major Allardyce should not know how matters stood for at least another month, and this small marplot had discovered a great deal too much. ees 156 : WEE WILLIE WINKIE. “JT saw you,” said Wee Willie Winkie - “ But vegroom didn’t see. I said, ‘Hut j ee hie to wide ve buffalo ven my pony was lame ; 3 fought you wouldn’t like.” % Winkie,” said Coppy enthusiastically, Shales oy the small hand, “youw’re the best of good fellows. go and tell your father.” - “What will happen?” ol Wee Willie Wi ened. “ “TPs like ve sputter-brush ? 2 sf coy said Coppy gravely WE WILLIE WINKIE. 157 “ But I don’t fink Pll ever want to kiss big girls, nor no one ’cept my muvver. And I musé vat, you know.” There was a fore pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie. “ Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy ee “ Awfully ! ” said Coppy. “Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha—or me ? 999 “Tt’s in a different way,’ said Coppy. “ You see, one of these days Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you'll grow up and command the Regiment and —all sorts of things. It’s quite different, you see.” “Very well,” said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. “Tf you're fond of ve big girl, I won’t tell any one. I must go now.” Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding :—“ You’re the best of little fellows, Winkie. Itellyou what. In thirty days from now you can tell if you like—tell any one you like.’’ Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engage- ment was dependent on a little child’s word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie’s idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a special and unusual in- terest in Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He was trying to dis- cover why Coppy should have kissed her. She was not half so nice as his own mother. On the other hand, she was Coppy’s property, and would in time 158 WEE WILLIE WINKIR. belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as much respect as Coppy’s big sword or shiny pistol. The idea that he had shared a Sy secret incom- mon with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made what he called a “camp fire” at — a the bottom of the garden. How could he have fore- seen that the flying sparks would have lighted the Colonel’s little hayrick and consumed a week’s store for the horses? Sudden and swift was the punish- ment—deprivation of the good-conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days confinement to barracks—the house and veranda—coupled with the withdrawal of the light of his father’s counte-— 2 nance. drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in “a his nursery—called by him “my quarters.” Coppy came in the afternoon and attempted to console see culprit. “T’m under awwest,” said Wee Willie Winkie mournfully, “and I didn’t ought to speak to you.” Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house—that was not forbidden—and_ be- oe held Miss Allardyce going for a ride. “Where are you going?” cried Wee Willie ~— Winkie. “ Across the river,” she answered, and trotted forward. He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, — < WEE WiLLIE WINKIE. 159 Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by a river—dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy—the almost almighty Coppy —had never set foot beyondit. Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the Princess and the Goblins—a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were al- ways warring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said that there lived the Bad Men. Evenin his own house the lower halves of the windows were covered with green paper on ac- count of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfort- able bedrooms. - Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce’s big girl, Coppy’s property, preparing to venture into their borders! What would Coppy say if anything happened to her ? If the Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie’s Princess? She must at all hazards be turned back. The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie re- flected for a moment on the very terrible wrath of his father ; and then—broke his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, on the trim garden-paths, 160° = WEE WILLIE WINKIE. — pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the daw that all the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since the one great sin made all others Jnsig- nificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at afoot-— pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flowe = borders. The devastating track of the pony’s feet was ate last misdeed that cut him off from all sympathy of Humanity. He turned into the road, leaned for- ward, and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the pround 1 in the direction of the river. | But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can ae little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through the corps, beyond the Police-post, when all the guards were asleep, and her mount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie a 1 ft see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony Ses ‘Dbe reason | Of her va was must not ride out by the river. And she ad gol e to prove her own So and teach CORD a lease ss WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 161 Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having thus demonstrated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by the ap- — parition of a white, wide-eyed child khaki, on a nearly spent pony. “Are you badly, badly hurted?” shouted Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range. “ You didn’t ought to be here.” “T don’t know,” said Miss Allardyce ruefully, ignoring the reproof. ‘“ Good gracious, child, what are you doing here?” “You said you. was going acwoss ve wiver,” panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. ‘“ And nobody—not even Coppy—must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn’t stop, and now you've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and— Tve bwoken my awwest! DPve bwoken my aw- west!” The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved. ; “Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? What for?” “You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!” wailed Wee Willie Winkie disconsolately. ‘I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of you van bell or ve Butcha orme. AndsoIcame. You must get up and come back. You didn’t ought to II : 162 WEE WILLIE WINKIE. | be here Vis is a bad place, and ’ve bwoken my a aw west.” “T can’t move, Winkie,” said Miss Allardyce, with a groan. “I’ve hurt my foot. What shall Ido?” She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears were the depth of unman-— liness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be permitted to break down. “Winkie,” said Miss Allardyce, “when you’ve rested a little, ride back and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts fearfully.” The child sat still for a little time and Miss Al- lardyce closed her eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony’s neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed towards the cantonments. “Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?” “ Hush !” said Wee Willie Winkie. “ Vere’sa man coming—one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. My faver says a man must always look after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey’ll come ane look for us. Vat’s why I let him go.” Not one man, but two or three had appeared from behind the foe of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex WEE WILLIE WINKIiE. 163 Curdie’s soul. Thus had they played in Curdie’s garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess’s nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father’s grooms lately dismissed. People who spoke that tongue could not bethe Bad Men. They were only natives after all. They came up to the bowlders on which Miss Allardyce’s horse had blundered, Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three- quarters, and said briefly and emphatically “Jao?” The pony had crossed the river-bed. The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could not toler- ate. He asked them what they wanted and why they did not depart. Other men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of the shad- ows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face with an audience some twenty strong. Miss Allardyce screamed. “Who are you?” said one of the men. J am the Colonel Sahib’s son, and my order is that you go at once. You black men are frighten- ing the Miss Sahib. One of you must run into can- tonments and take the news that the Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel’s son is here with her.” “Put our feet into the trap?” was the laughing reply. ‘‘ Hear this boy’s speech! ” 164 WEE WILLIE Se “2 Say that I sent a the Colonels 8 son. _ They = will give you money.” — eo « What is the use of this talk? Take up the ehild and the girl, and we can at least ask for the ran- som. Ours are the villages on the heights,” said 3 voice in the background. 2 These were the Bad Men—worse than Goblins: and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie’s training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he felt that to cry before a native, excepting only his mother’s ayah, would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he, as future Colonel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his back. | “Are you going to carry us away?” said Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and uncomfortable. _ “Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur,” said the tallest of the men, “and eat you afterwards.” e “That is child’s talk,” said Wee Willie Winkie, ‘Men do not eat men.” Ze A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went & on firmly,—‘ And if you do carry us away, I tell : you that all my regiment will come up in a day and _ kill you all without leaving one. Who will take ny 5 message to the Colonel Sahib ?” e Speech in any vernacular—and Wee Willie Winkie | had a colloquial acquaintance with three—was easy to the boy who could not yet manage his “ r’s ” "and “th’s” aright. a ee _ Another man joined the conference, erying: — - “QO foolish men! ‘What this babe says is true. He is the heart’s heart of those white troops. For the ng cs lane) Og > aig > on eR eY t-yt Nae , ae pate yt tri 3-3 WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 165 sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will break loose and gut the valley. Our villages are in the valley, and we shall not es- cape. That regiment aredevils. They broke Khoda Yar’s breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles ; and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing re- mains. Better to send a man back to take the mes- sage and get areward. Isay that this child is their God, and that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him.” It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his “ wegiment,” his own “ wegiment,” would not desert him if they knew of his extremity. The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel’s household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade-ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the Color Ser- geant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Corporal as he passed. “Up, ye beg- gars! There’s something happened to the Colonel’s son,” he shouted. a | *“ He couldn’t fall off! S’elp me,’e couldn’¢ fall 166 oe WEE WILLIE WINKIE. off,’ blubbered a drummer-boy. “Go an’ hunt acrost the river. He’s over there if he’s anywhere, an’ week those Pathans have got *im. For the love o’ Gawd don’t look for ’im in the nullahs! — Let’s go over the river.’ e There's sense in Mott yet,” said Devlin. “E Company, double out to the river—sharp!” So E Company, in its shirt sleeves mainly, dou- bled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled the per- spiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too ex- hausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed. Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie’s Bad Men were discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a lookout fired two shots. “What have I said ?” shouted Din Mahommed. “There isthe warning! The pulton are out already and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with the boy!” The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared. “The wegiment is coming,” said Wee Willie Winkie confidently to Miss Allardyce, “and it’s all wight. Don’t cwy!” He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his father came up, he was weeping bit- _ 5 terly with his head in Miss Allardyce’s lap. WEE WILLIE WINKIE. 167 And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and rejoicings; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the presence of the men. But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made him proud of hisson. . “She belonged to you, Coppy,” said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. I Anew she didn’t ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent Jack home.” “You're a hero, Winkie,” said Coppy—“ a pukka hero!” “T don’t know what vat means,” said Wee Willie Winkie, “but you mustn’t call me Winkie any no — more. I’m Percival Will’am Will’ams.” And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into his manhood. THE FIRST BAG. Tury were putting Punch to bed—the ayah and the hamal and Meeta, the big Surti boy with the red and gold turban. Judy, already tucked inside her mosquito-curtains, was nearly asleep. Punch had been allowed to stay up for dinner. Many privileges had been accorded to Punch within the last ten days, and a greater kindness from the peopl of his world had encompassed his ways and work: which were mostly obstreperous. He sat on the edge of his bed and swung his bare legs defiantly. ; « Punch-baba going to Pye ¢” said ae ag a suggestively. “No,” said Punch. ‘‘ Punch- ‘abe wants the ton about ibe Ranee that was turned into a tiger. Meeta must tell it, and the Aamal shall hide behind the door and make tiger-noises at the proper time “But Judy-baba will wake up,” said the ayah. — “ Judy-baba is waking,” piped a small voice fro. the mosquito-curtains. “There was a Ranee that lived at Delhi. Go on, Meeta,” and she fell fast asleep again while Meeta began the story. Never had Punch yea the veling of that tale 168 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 169 with so little opposition. He reflected fora long time. The hamal made the tiger-noises in twenty different keys. “°Top!” said Punch, authoritatively. ‘“ Why doesn’t Papa come in and say he is going to give me put-put ?”’ “ Punch-baba is going away,” said the ayah. “In another week there will be no Punch-baba to pull my hair any more.” She sighed softly, for the boy of the household was very dear to her heart. “Up the Ghauts in a train?” said Punch, stand- ing on his bed. “All the way to Nassick where the Ranee-Tiger lives ?” “Not to Nassick this year, little Sahib,” said Meeta, lifting him on his shoulder. “Down to the sea where the cocoanuts are thrown, and across the seaina big ship. Will you take Meeta with you to Belait ?” “You shall all come,” said Punch, from the height of Meeta’s strong arms. ‘“ Meeta and the ayah and the hamatand Bhini-in-the-Garden, and the salaam-Captain-Sahib-snake-man.” There was no mockery in Meeta’s voice when he replied—* Great is the Sahib’s favor,” and laid the little man down in the bed, while the ayah, sitting in the moonlight at the doorway, lulled him to sleep with an interminable canticle such as they sing in the Roman Catholic Church, at Parel. Punchcurled himself into a ball and slept. Next morning Judy shouted that there was a rat in the nursery, and thus he forgot to tell her the 170 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. wonderful news. It did not much matter, for Judy was only three and she would not have understood. _ But Punch was five; and he knew that going to — England would be much nicer than a trip to Nassick. And Papa and Mamma sold the brougham and the piano, and stripped the house, and curtailed the allowance of crockery for the daily meals, and took long counsel together over a bundle of letters bear- ing the Rocklington post-mark. -“ The worst of it is that one can’t be certain of anything,” said Papa, pulling his mustache. “The letters in themselves are excellent, and the terms are moderate enough.” “The worst of it is that the children will grow up away from me,” thought Mamma: but she did not e say it aloud. “We are only one case among hundreds,” said Papa, Dien “ You shall go Home oo in five years, dear.” “Punch will be ten then—and Judy eight. Oh, how long and long and long the time will be! And we have to leave them among strangers.” “ Punch isacheery little chap. He’ssure to make friends wherever he goes.” “ And who could help loving my Ju?” They were standing over the cots in the nursery late at night, and I think that Mamma was crying ~ softly. After Papa had gone away, she knelt down by the side of Judy’s cot. Theayahsaw herand put BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 171 up a prayer that the memsaheb might never find the love of her children taken away from her and given to a stranger. Mamma/’s own prayer was a slightly illogical one. Summarized it ran :—“ Let strangers love my chil- dren and be as good to them as I should be, but let me preserve their love and their confidence for ever -and ever. Amen.” Punch scratched himself in his sleep, and Judy moaned a little. That seems to be the only answer to the prayer: and, next day, they all went down to the sea, and there was a scene at the Apollo Bunder when Punch discovered that Meeta could not come too, and Judy learned that the ayah must be left behind. But Punch found a thou- sand fascinating things in the rope, block, and steam- pipe line on the big P. and O. Steamer, long before Meeta and the aya/ had dried their tears. * Come back, Punch-baba,” said the ayah. : “ Come back,” said Meeta, “and bea Burra Sahib.” “ Yes,” said Punch, lifted up in his father’s arms to wave good-by. “Yes, I will come back, and I will be a Burra Sahib Baha dur!” At the end of the first day Punch demanded to be set down in England, which he was certain must be close at hand. Next day there was a merry breeze, and Punch was very sick. “ When I come back to Bombay,” said Punch on his recovery, “I will come by the road—in a broom-gharri. This is a very naughty ship.” The Swedish boatswain consoled him, and he modified his opinions as the voyage went on, There 172 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. was so much to see and to handle and ask questions about that Punch nearly forgot the ayah and Meeta and the hamal, and with difficulty remembered a few words of the Hindustani, once his second- speech. But Judy was much worse. The day before the steamer reached Southampton, Mamma asked her if she would not like to see the ayah again. Judy’s blue eyes turned to the stretch of sea that had swallowed all her tiny past, and she said :—“ Ayah / What ayah ?” Mamma cried over her and Punch marveled. It was then that he heard for the first time Mamma’s passionate appeal to him never to let Judy forget Mamma. Seeing that Judy was young, ridiculously young, and that Mamma, every evening for four weeks past, had come into the cabin to sing her and Punch to sleep with a mysterious tune that he called “Sonny, my soul,” Punch could not understand what Mamma meant. But hestrove to do his duty; for, the moment Mamma left the cabin, he said to Judy :—“ Ju, you bemember Mamma?” “?Torse I do, ” said Judy. “Then ay bemember Mamma, ’r eee I won’t give you the paper ducks that the red-haired Cap- tain Sahib cut out for me.” So Judy promised always to “ bemember Mamma.” Many and many a time was Mamma’s command laid upon Punch, and Papa wouldsay the same thing with an insistence that awed the child. BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 173 “ You must make haste and learn to write, Punch,” said Papa, “and then you'll be able to write letters to us in Bombay.” “J’ll come into your room,” said Punch, and Pare choked. Papa and Mamma were always choking in those days. If Punch took Judy to task for not “ bemem- bering,” they choked. If Punch sprawled on the sofa in the Southampton lodging-house and sketched his future in purple and gold, they choked ; and so they did if Judy put up her mouth for a kiss. Through many days all four were vagabonds on the face of the earth :—Punch with no one to give orders to, Judy too young for anything, and Papa and Mamma grave, distracted, and choking. “ Where,” demanded Punch, wearied of a loath- some contrivance on four wheels with a mound of luggage atop— where is our broom-gharri ? This thing talks so much that J can’t talk. Where is our own broom-gharri ?” When I was at Bandstand before we comed away, I asked Inverarity Sahib why he was sitting in it, and he said it was his own. And I said, ‘I will gzve it you ’—I like Inverarity Sahib—and I said, ‘Can you put your legs through the pully-wag loops by the windows?’ And In- verarity Sahib said No, and laughed. J can put my legs through the pully-wag loops. I can put my legs through these pully-wag loops. Look! Oh, Mamma’s crying again! I didn’t know I wasn’t not to do so.” Punch drew his legs out of the loops of the four- 174 BAA BAA, “BLACK SHEEP. wheeler: the door opened and he slid to the Barth, ae in a cascade of parcels, at the door of an austere — little villa whose gates bore the legend “Downe ~ Lodge.” Punch gathered himself together and eyed the house with disfavor. It stood ona sandy road, and a cold wind tickled his knickerbockered legs. __ “Let us ay away,” said Punch. “This is not a — pretty place.” But Mamma and Papa and J ady had quitted the cab, and all the luggage was being taken into the house. At the doorstep stood a woman in black, and she smiled largely, with dry chapped lips. Be-— hind her was a man, big, bony, gray, and lame as — to one leg—behind him a boy of twelve, black- haired and oily in appearance. Punch surveyed the trio, and advanced without fear, ashe had been __ pod to do in Bombay when pallens came and he happened to be playing in the veranda. _ “How do you do?” said he. “ I am Punch. ee But they were all looking at the luggage—all ex- cept the gray man, who shook hands with Punch and said he was “a smart little fellow.” There was much running about and banging of boxes, — and Punch ‘ourled: himself up on the sofa in the - dining-room and considered things. “JT don’t like these people,’ said Punch. “But — never mind. We'll goaway soon. We havealways — went away soon from everywhere. I wish we was gone back to Bombay soon.” s os The wish bore no fruit. For six days Mamma - wept at intervals, and showed the woman in black BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 175 all Punch’s clothes—a liberty which Punch re- sented. “But p’raps she’s a new white ayah,” he thought. “I’m to call her Antirosa, but she doesn’t call me Sahib. She says just Punch,” he confided toJudy. “ What is Antirosa?”’ Judy didn’t know. Neither she nor Punch had heard anything of an animal called an aunt. Their world had been Papa and Mamma, who knew every- thing, permitted everything, and loved everybody— even Punch when he used to go into the garden at Bombay and fill his nails with mold after the weekly nail-cucting, becauseas he explained between two strokes of the slipper to his sorely tried Father, his fingers “ felt so new at the ends.” In an undefined way Punch judged it advisable to keep both parents between himself and the woman in black and the boy in black hair. He did not approve of them. He liked the gray man, who had expressed a wish to be called “ Uncleharri.”’ They nodded at each other when they met, and the gray man showed him a little ship with rigging that took up and down. “She is a model of the Brisk—the little Brisk that was sore exposed that day at Navarino.” The gray man hummed the last words and fell into a rey- erie. ‘T’ll tell you about Navarino, Punch, when we gofor walks together ; and you mustn’t touch the ship, because she’s the Brisk.” Long before that walk, the first of many, was taken, they roused Punch and Judy in the chill dawn of a February morning to say Good-by; and 176 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP, ey of all people in the wide earth to Papa and Mamma —both crying this time. Punch was very sleepy and Judy was cross. a “Don’t forget us,” pleaded Mamma. “Oh,my little son, don’t forget us, and see that Judyremem- 2 ieee bers too.” : “ve told Judy to bemember,” said Punch, wrig- e _ giling, for his father’s beard tickled his neck. “ Dve told Judy—ten—forty—even thousand times. But | - Ju’s so young—quite a baby—isn’t she?” “Yes,” said Papa, * quite a baby, and you must — be good to Judy, and make haste to learn to write and—and—and ” Punch was back in his bed again. Judy was fast - asleep, and there was the rattle of a cab below. Papa and Mamma had goneaway. Not to Nassick ; that was across the sea. To some place much - nearer, of course, and equally of course they would _ return. They came back after dinner-parties, and Papa had come back after he had been toaplace called “The Snows,’ and Mamma with him, to Punch and Judy at Mrs. Inverarity’s house in Marine Lines. Assuredly they would come back 7 again. So Punch fell asleep till the true morning, when the black-haired boy met him with the infor- mation that Papa and Mamma had goneto Bombay, and that he and Judy were to stay at Downe Lodge _ “forever.” Antirosa, tearfully appealed to for a — contradiction, said that Harry had spoken thetruth, and that it behooved Punch to fold up his clothes neatly on going to bed. Punch went out and wept BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 177 bitterly with Judy, into whose fair head he had driven some ideas of the meaning of separation. When a matured man discovers that he has been deserted by Providence, deprived of his God, and cast without help, comfort, or sympathy, upon a world which is new and strange to hin, his despair, which may find expression, in evil-living, the writing of his experiences, or the more satisfactory diversion of suicide, is generally supposed to be impressive. A child, under exactly similar circumstances as for as its knowledge goes, cannot very well curse God and die. It howls till its nose is red, its eyes are sore and its head aches. Punch and Judy, through no fault of their own, had lost all their world. They sat in the hall and cried; the black-haired boy look- ing on from afar. The model of the ship availed nothing, though the gray man assured Punch that he might pull the rigging up and down as much as he pleased ; and Judy was promised free entry into the kitchen. They wanted Papa and Mamma gone to Bombay beyond the seas, and their grief while it lasted was without remedy. When the tears ceased the house was very still. Antirosa had decided it was better to let the chil- dren “have their cry out,” and the boy had gone to school. Punch raised his head from the floor and sniffed mournfully. Judy was nearly asleep. Three short years had not taught her how to bear sorrow with full knowledge. There was a distant, dull boom in the air—a repeated heavy thud. Punch 12 178 eax ‘BAA, BLACK SHEEP. knew that sound in Bombay in the Monsoat. It was the sea—the sea that must be traversed bef 2 @ any one could get to Bombay. as a “ Quick, Ju!” he cried, “ we’re close a the sea. I can hear it! Listen! That’s where they’ve wen P’raps we can catch them if we was in time. The didn’t mean to g° without us. They’ve only fo got.” ae Ciena iss, said Judy hens only forsee Less go to the sea.” | : The hall-door was open and so was the garden- gate. “It’s very, very big, this place,” he said: looline cautiously down the road, “ and we will get lost; but Z will find aman and order him to take me , back to my house—like I did in Bombay.” He took Judy by the hand, and the two fled ha: 7 less in the direction of the cpie of the sea. Down Villa was almost the last of a range of newly built houses running out, through a chaos of brick-mounds, to a heath where gypsies occasionally camped and where the Garrison Artillery of Rocklington pra tised, There were few people to be seen, and the children might have been taken. for those of the sol-. diery who ranged far. Halfan hour the wearied little legs tramped across heath, potato-field, and sand- fae : | . Pso so tired,” said Judy, “ and Mamma will be angry.” “‘Mamma’s never angry. I suppose te 18 waiting at the sea now while Papa gets tickets. We'll find BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. 179 them and go along with. Ju, you mustn’t sit down. Only a little more and we’ll come to the sea. Ju, if you sit down [ll thmack you!” said Punch. They climbed another dune, and came upon the great gray sea at low tide. Hundreds of crabs were scuttling about the beach, but there was no trace of Papa and Mamma, not even of a ship upon the waters—nothing but sand and mud for miles and miles. And “ Uncleharri” found them by chance—very muddy and very forlorn—Punch dissolved in tears, but trying to divert Judy with an “ickle trab,” and Judy wailing to the pitiless horizon for “ Mamma, Mamma !”—and again “ Mamma!” THE SECOND BAG. Aut this time not a word about Black Sheep. He came later, and Harry the black-haired boy was mainly responsible for his coming. Judy—who could help loving little Judy ?—passed, by special permit, into the kitchen and thence straight to Aunty Rosa’s heart. Harry was Aunty Rtosa’s one child, and Punch was the extra boy about the house. There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl on sofas and explain his ideas about the manufacture of this world and his hopes for his future. Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk. They 180 BAA BAA, BLACK SHEEP. were talked to, and the talking to was intended for _ the benefit of their morals. As the unquestioned — despot of the house at Bombay, Punch could not ss quite understand how he came to be of no account Ss in this his new life. Harry might reach across the table andtake what he wanted; Judy might point and get what she wanted. Punch was forbidden to do either. The — eray man was his great hope and stand-by for — many months after Mamma and Papa left, and he had forgotten to tell Judy to ‘“‘bemember Mamma.” This lapse was excusable, because in the interval — he had-been introduced by Aunty Rosa to two very impressive things—an abstraction called God, the intimate friend and ally of Aunty Rosa, generally. believed to live behind the kitchen-range because it was hot there—and a dirty brown book filled with unintelligible dots and marks. Punch was always anxious to obligeeverybody. He, therefore, welded the story of the Creation on to what he could rec- ollect of his Indian fairy tales, and scandalized Aunty Rosa by repeating the result to Judy. It was a sin, a grievous sin, and Punch was talked to — for a quarter of an hour. He could not understand — where the iniquity came in, but was careful not to repeat the offense, because Aunty Rosa told him that God had heard every word he had said and — was very angry. If this were true why didn’t God come and say so, thought Punch, and dismissed the _ matter from his mind. Afterwards he learned to know the Lord as the only thing in the world more | 4 e re, as ts